The Cash Crop

Does the silkworm run out of silk or does he simply run out of room? Or does another drive take over and he begins to feel a strange exhaustion as all within him begins to change? He becomes still. Beneath the cocoon his outer skin begins to harden and darken. Hormones from his brain send messages around his simple system of blood and gut: cells migrate, grow, shrink, change - a new order for a grand opening.

There is little time. If the silkworm farmer doesn't act quickly the moth will emerge and his crop will be ruined.

The cocoons go into sacks for the large concrete depot near the mulberry fields. There they are tipped into baskets,


of which there are many


spread into trays, and then stifled in the heat. There will be no moth (sometimes it doesn't pay to think).


The cocoons are safe now. They can be tipped out -


thousands, maybe millions of them - then weighed


and shoved into sacks again... ready for the mill.