De'Vecchj at Kengeri: experiment and crisis
Mysore
had by the time of Sullivan’s visit, already acquired its own ‘energetic
and intelligent European superintendence’ in the person of an Italian
entrepreneur, Major A.P. De’Vecchj de Piccioli. It had
several important differences to the Mutti scheme, however. De’Vecchj
was not seeking employment but bringing substantial capital to invest in India,
and he had the wealth and prestige of the advanced European silk industry of
Italy directly behind him. In India he had immediate access to and support from
the highest authority in the state, Chief Commissioner Lewin Bowring, and he
was not seeking to establish a silk industry in a virtually new region and on
new lines but to improve one already long established. He was also bringing to
India the direct dependence on Japan as a major source for silkworm eggs
already found in Europe. Japan had come into the international sericultural
scene in this capacity around 1855, when pebrine was ravaging the sericulture
of Europe and the Near East
In
1864, Dr E. Veechy was in correspondence with the Government of Mysore
‘regarding the improved method of sericulture’. The following year in southern
France, at Alais in the Cevennes sericultural region, Louis Pasteur, already
the pioneer of microbiological research particularly in relation to vaccines,
got to work on pebrine, a deadly silkworm disease which had by then been
decimating the European silk industry for several years.[1]
Despite starting off under serious misunderstandings as to what it was he was
confronting, by energetic laboratory work and within the year he had identified
the problem, discovered how the disease was passed on and how it could be
contained by microscopic examination of mother moths and the elimination of
infected offspring (Pasteur 1868, 1870; Roman 1870).
In
the same year, 1865, a Major A.P. De'Vecchj, obtained land from the Government for
a silk farm and filiature at Kengeri near Bangalore, at the time a taluk
headquarters,. He and a brother were probably linked to a major silk business
in Milan, Pasquale De
Vecchj and Co. It may be guessed that Kengeri was chosen for its location
between the major silk areas south west and north east of Bangalore city and
its easy contact with the seat of government. The British Chief Commissioner,
Lewin Bowring, and others were supportive, even enthusiastic about sericultural
development. De’Vecchj was given two plots of land, free of the normal rent
assessment for seven years, in order to experiment with the improvement of
sericulture. From there he bought raw silk in some quantity from the Mustan
firm in Channapatna: he addressed Mustan as ‘Silk Commissioner’ and directed
him on one occasion to buy him 20 maunds of ‘first quality at Bazaar price’ for
delivery in Bangalore (Quddus 1923: 20). He set up a steam filature and
introduced Italian and Japanese worms for crossing with 'the native worm', as
well as superior mulberry said to be Chinese, Japanese and Perrottet’s multicaulis.
The
filature can be considered first since it was relevant only in the early
stages. A building with facilities for rearing and for reeling – probably his
laboratory work as well, and with a mulberry garden nearby – was constructed
and equipped. A Dr H. De'Vecchj, a brother, had joined the enterprise at an
early stage. He ran the steam filature of 80 basins, opening in 1866. 'The
hands employed in this delicate process were female orphans from Bangalore
Convent, under the charge of native nuns' (Rice 1897: 80). The machinery was
subsequently described by Mr Sullivan, whose accounts of village rearing and
reeling machines of the period are quoted elsewhere.
He
was impressed with the machinery and added two further comments clearly reflecting
perspectives of a British officer of the time. Though the machinery was not
working, and indeed had not been for more than a year by the time he saw it, he
found it ‘so beautifully simple that we had no difficulty in understanding the
mode of working’. He and a Mr Grimes accompanying him ‘were struck by the
facility with which it might be adapted for use in a jail, convict labour being
substituted for steam as a motive power’. He found it, the second comment,
‘curious to observe the similarity of design in these finished appliances to
the crude apparatus use by the native silk-reeler, the difference being that in
one case the design had been worked out to perfection, in the other no attempt
had been made to improve on the crude invention’. ‘There are, doubtless’, he
commented finally, ‘other processes to which the raw material is subjected with
which I am unacquainted, before the beautiful article which Messrs De’Veechj
send into the market is produced.’ (Geoghegan 1872: 99; 1880: 126-7). That they needed 16 lbs of
cocoons to produce 1 lb of silk, against the 13 lbs that local reelers might
require, and a machine of enormously greater cost, even if it could be locally
manufactured and operated, and that to realise any additional value the silk
had to travel across continents, all these had been well known to earlier
generations of would-be developers, as has been seen.
Already by 1866 De’Veechj had been proceeding to field trials for
his mulberry cultivation, rearing and breeding. He supplied the Commissioner
with cartons of eggs of the cross-breeds that he had produced. These were to be
put out for hatching and rearing to selected ‘garden holders’ in Closepet and
Hoskote taluks of Bangalore Division. This experiment was tried in July 1866
but was not successful: the explanation offered was that heavy rainfall
retarded hatching. In the monsoon period this was unlucky perhaps but should
hardly have been unexpected. At this time there were only four Districts
producing silk. Bangalore was second only to Mysore in the extent of the
mulberry plantations officially recorded, with 6,150 acres, against 11,013 in
Mysore. Of the other two, Kolar, a major area for the future, then had only
1,215; in Hassan there were 45 acres.
The
following year the same experiment was repeated but on a larger scale and at
two different times, at the end of February / beginning of March and in June,
with eggs distributed mainly to Bangalore Division centres, but one or two also
further south, in all in nine taluks. Reports were obtained from the Amildars
heading each of the taluks. Kengeri itself received 6 cartons, one each for 5
people on the first round, and one on the second. 3 of the first lot did not
hatch, but 2, as well as the single from the second round, did produce 1000 or
so cocoons each. From the second lot, 100 each were sent to the Commissioner,
the Deputy Supervisor and De’Vecchj himself. Subsequently the worms all died,
‘owing, it is surmised, to the unsuitableness of the climate, as well as to
want of proper care’. It was further observed that the worms consumed more food
than the ordinary local worms but that their silk was superior. It did,
however, seem to be of ‘two or three different descriptions’. It looks as if it
was not entirely clear what eggs they were that were being provided.
Closepet,
now Ramnagar, the nearest of the other taluks and a major rearing area,
received a more generous provision, 8 on the first round and 21 on the second,
and put them out in three different hoblis, the divisions of a taluk. One
produced a few worms but no silk, another failed completely ‘though every care
was taken’, and in the third the worms died while spinning. The native worms
had failed at the same time, so there appeared to be ‘some unhealthiness either
in the atmosphere or in the food.’ Of the 40 cartons that went to Hoskote on
the other side of Bangalore, none hatched and the Amildar sent them back to
De’Vecchj. From Maddur, another of the major sericultural centres beyond
Channapatna on the road to Mysore, there was no mortality but the experiment
was still regarded as a failure because ‘the foreign worms were found to need
twice the quantity of mulberry leaves but the quantity of silk is not greater
nor the quality better’. People did not want these worms because of the extra
cost of feeding them. In Malavalli the first batch produced no worms; from the
second, three-quarters did hatch but the worms died within twenty days ‘either
from fever or some other cause’. Here it was observed that the worms ‘present a
yellowish or dirty white colour and suffered a sort of cutaneous eruption’
(KSA, Agriculture 1837-1912, 1 of 1867-68).
With
such diverse results sharing only failure, the experience was bewildering. The
Secretary to the Commissioner wrote an inconclusive but discouraged letter to
De’Vecchj: ‘whatever the cause it was equally difficult to prescribe a remedy’.
The Divisional Superintendent observed that, after such failures ‘it is
difficult to induce Natives to continue to expend care on the Experiment’. By
now it was May 1868, and De’Vecchj was clinging to hope. The two seasons of the
previous year had been deeply disappointing, but he responded as positively as
possible, drawing attention to success they had had in Kolar (KSA, Agriculture
1837-1912, 1 of 1867-68) of which, he complained, no notice had been taken.
This being apparently a District new, fresh and separate from areas of previous
experiment, beyond Hoskote in the north east, it is possible that the pebrine,
if such there was - De'Vecchj was by now identifying it as 'atrophy' – had not
previously reached it. 'Atrophy', according to Zanier, is the Italian name for
pebrine and it is entirely possible that the Italian eggs that had been
imported and distributed, crossed or otherwise, in Bangalore District in 1866,
had brought it with them. It was of course far too early for Pasteur’s
procedure for securing disease-free layings to be being used at Kengeri: even
the basis for it had been discovered only the previous year in France and was
to be developed and published only in 1870.
The
hope was now to follow the course that Europe had been adopting to retrieve its
own industry: to import eggs from countries thought to be free of pebrine,
particularly Japan, and to use the foreign eggs exclusively for rearing, avoiding
cross-breeeding. In the same year, 1868, the De’Vecchjs also established a
‘Madras and Mysore Silk Company’ near Madras city. In August a trip to Japan
was announced, with the offer of bringing back 250 cartons. The cost would be
Rs 4,000. Support for a further attempt had been mobilised, with encouraging
letters obtained from Closepet, Channapatna, Malavalli and Maddur, also Anekal,
a taluk east of Bangalore not previously recorded in connection with the
experiments. These were signed with large numbers of names – up to 163 from
Closepet – and English translations were made. Some referred back to the heroic
days of Tipu Sultan and his introduction of silkworms from abroad. The
Commissioner was still favourable enough to the scheme to advance Rs 2,000,
half the cost quoted, the rest to be paid on arrival of the eggs.
By
late October, a De’Vecchj was back ‘by steamer’ in Madras with his eggs and was
planning the distribution. There should be 30 cartons each for Kengeri,
Closepet, Channapatna, Kankanhalli (Kanakapura), Mallavalli, Magadi and
Nelamangala; 10 each for Anekal, Surjapur, Hoskote, and Doddballapur; 20 for
Yellahanka, 40 for Devanahalli, and 45 for Maddur. De’Vecchj himself would get
25 cartons, probably out of Kengeri’s 30. The Nandidroog Superintendent,
probably J.M. Pearle, responded that Closepet would have been a better place
than Devanahalli, the birthplace of Tipu Sultan, to be given the extra. There
was also argument about the number De’Vecchj was getting and about paying for
them, but the Superintendent was on his side. (KSA, Agriculture 1837-1912, 1 of
1868) The distribution of late 1868 was carried out, an Acting Deputy
Superintendent himself taking them around to some of the taluks. Many of the
eggs did not hatch and remained ‘on the papers’, presumably those on which they
had been layed. Worms that did hatch died. The Superintendent considered that,
when the disease had abated, they should try again to support ‘this branch of
industry – which is the source of emolument and a source of occupation for a
large proportion of our Mahomedan population’ (KSA, Agriculture 1837-1912, 1 of
1869/70).
On
July 1st, 1869 the Superintendent wrote to the Secretary to the Chief
Commissioner. He was sending a report, received from the Secretary of State and
the Government of India, that had appeared in the Proceedings of the Silk
Supply Association in London, on the events in Mysore. It referred to ‘the
culture of silk in Mysore prior to the time when the disease appeared which has
within the last two or three years caused such unprecedented mortality among
the worms.’ He had also himself been investigating the history of the industry.
He was happy to report that he had had ‘the
opportunity of conversing within the last few days with some very respectable
Mahomedan Gentlemen who hold extensive mulberry plantations and who, I was very
glad to find, spoke hopefully of the future, though they said that the worm
disease had brought ruin to many Mahomedan dwellings’. The gentlemen also said
that ‘25-35 years ago the worms died in just the same way for a period of two
years. It gradually decreased in virulence till it disappeared completely’.
With this knowledge behind them, they were therefore holding on to their
mulberry plantations. His view was that, ‘with the exception of those two years
the culture seemed to have been steadily extending but scarcely improving until
1865’.
A more pessimistic view was also
frequently elaborated, that the worms had degenerated, reeling and silk had
deteriorated, and perhaps even the mulberry too. It was forcibly expressed by a
visitor to Kengeri in 1869, a Mr Fletwell, deputed by the Government of the
Bombay Presidency to seek a supply of eggs from D’Vecchj for a new sericultural
experiment at Khandesh. Everything was at a standstill at Kengeri when he
arrived. This was on account of ‘the complete and thorough deterioration of the
breed of worms throughout Mysore (both native and imported species).’ He was
convinced that ‘the insect has, in fact, exhausted its vital energy and dies
off just when the spinning process ought to commence.’ He was also sharply
critical, writing that ‘to have commenced an experiment from such a breed’ – as
had been done – ‘would, in my opinion, have been highly injudicious’. ‘The
inevitable failure of the crop probably would have been attributed to some defect of the climate, or to a
carelessness in the manipulation of the insects, instead of to the actual cause
– i.e. the want of vitality in the worms themselves.’ They were, he considered,
being over-exploited by the Mysore system of multiple cropping: ‘nowhere else
in the world are so many consecutive crops of silk produced in one season as in
the silk districts of Mysore.’ The
situation was bad but as yet not quite as universally so. Fletwell travelled
south from Kengeri through silk areas and did see reeling in operation at
Closepet, Channapatna, Maddur and Mysore, but he was also told that merchants
came from Dharwar and Belgaum and bought the silk at as little as Rs.4 per seer
of 26 Rupees weight, whereas the best silk might sell for Rs.14. (Geoghegan
1880: 124-6)
Despite
the apparent inability of such ‘degeneration’ views to explain much of what had
actually occurred, including the repeated and extensive failure of expensive
imported worms to hatch at all, there were undoubtedly underlying issues that
certainly needed to be addressed, particularly over the proper maintenance of
races of worms, but also of the mulberry. The
promise seen in De’Vecchj’s arrival by many and his attempt to ‘improve native
worms and introduce foreign mulberry’ was grounded in such ideas. One
way or another, the widely-felt need for something new overwhelmed, for some
influential people at least, the repeated experience of failure. Now, it led to
still one more attempt.
The
situation seemed desperate: hardly any cocoons for the seed needed to keep the
industry running were being successfully produced. The Government bought up and
distributed what little was available, and to many there seemed to be no
alternative to further importation just to keep sericulture alive. The De’Vecchjs,
admitting that the last attempt had been ‘a complete failure’, were planning
carefully: it seems they were trying to control for various factors. They would
obtain Chinese as well as Japanese cartons, not less than 500, and these would
be distributed in two different seasons and ‘principally in the District [sic]
which were not at all invaded by the worm’s disease / Atropia / such as
Malavalli’. It would be carefully selected ryots who would receive the cartons
in the presence of Amildars, the local authority, ‘with a view only to control
the number of cartoons distributed’. Rearing would be attended by De’Vecchj
himself. As far as paying for the eggs was concerned, only in the case of ‘a
moderate average success’ would Government be asked to pay, at Rs 18 per
carton, the same price as the preceding year, making Rs 9,000 for all. He would
pay all expenses otherwise. (KSA, Agriculture 1837-1912, 2 of 1869)
Government
agreed to go ahead, and De’Vecchj announced the arrival of cartons on 25th
January 1870. There were 500, but in the event they were all Japanese. Probably
it had proved too difficult to arrange for Chinese in the time available. There
were already other significant modifications to the original plan. The role of
the Amildars had been questioned and the suggestion made that De’Vecchj himself
should ‘appoint’ the recipients. He wanted Amildars ‘of silk manufacturing
taluks to depute trustworthy ryots to Kengeri to receive the silkworm eggs’.
What exactly happened is not clear. By the end of March, De’Vecchj was
reporting that he had distributed ‘upwards of 400 cartons’, each ‘said to
contain 35,000 eggs, out of which about 20,000 have been successful’.(KSA,
Agriculture 1837-1912, 2 of 1869) He was perhaps laying a foundation from which
to claim that results had shown a ‘good average success’.
At
the same time Dr H. De’Vecchj, who had been in charge of the ‘factory’ in the
early stages, completed an elegantly handwritten Manual for Sericulture in
Mysore, of about 3,250 words in length and dated 26th March, 1870.
It focuses on the rearing of Japanese worms and begins by recognising
acclimatisation as a problem, but it represent it as one for the ‘cultivators’
in their village homes to deal with. The Superintendent commented that ‘it
would appear to be advisable to have it translated into Canarese [Kannada] and
have it printed in both English and Canarese’. Another suggestion was that it
should appear as a supplement to the Government
Gazette, but there is no evidence that copies of the Manual went anywhere
beyond the Secretariat files.
For
the final stages, a Colonel Meade, who would in 1870 take over from Lewin
Bowring as Chief Commissioner of Mysore and Coorg, was present and already
taking an interest. He reported to the Madras Board of Revenue that the eggs
were distributed in Bangalore, Tumkur and Kolar Districts. (This may well have
been again extending, probably dangerously, the areas covered.) He continued,
beginning with that year:
‘The first results were favourable, and
the demand for eggs was very large; but the worms did not seem to thrive in the
second generation, and the foreign species became extinct.
Again in February 1871, 500 Japanese
cartons were distributed gratuitously, but proved a complete failure. In the
Bangalore and Kolar Districts a small number only of the eggs were hatched, and
even in these cases the worms died within a few days. The symptoms preceding
death appear to have been similar everywhere: the worms assumed a reddish
colour, their heads became enlarged, and a greenish fluid exuded from the
mouth.’
In
Tumkur the ryots were already ‘disheartened by former failures’ and seem not to
have co-operated; in Mysore, added to the list this time, eggs were reported as
having failed ‘owing to climatic causes’. (Geoghegan 1872: 96-7; 1880: 127).
Colonel
Meade was ‘disposed to attribute’ at least these last failures to a lack of
acclimatisation to the climate of Mysore. He is likely to have seen the notice
on the topic attached to the beginning of the Manual., but the thinking
there does not extend to any responsibility of the importer to attend to the
matter. The thinking amongst sericulturists on climatic matters, often invoked
as explanations of particular failures, had usually been in terms of seasonal
changes and of excessive rain or heat. Any need for acclimatisation as such
seems to have been ignored, possibly not appreciated but in this case more
likely obscured by the pressing need for action. There was still the
consideration that ‘a large proportion of the Mohamedan population depend on
the silk trade for their livelihoods’, meaning the trade in silk as well as the
ownership of mulberry gardens and the practice of sericulture, reeling and
twisting. The cartons of eggs were, Meade wrote, brought ‘direct from Japan,
without undergoing any preparation for so marked a change’. Government should
not continue with Japanese worms. Sericulture had nevertheless clearly engaged
his enthusism too. He suggested yet another one-more-try. The Chinese species
of worm had ‘successfully established itself’ and had been reared in Mysore for
many years, though now ‘deteriorated by close breeding’. ‘It is possible’ he
writes, that the cause of the sickness and mortality to which it is now
subject, and which threatens to extinguish the industry, may be removed by
importing fresh seed from the south of China, the climate of which approaches
more nearly than Japan to that of this plateau’. (Geoghegan 1880: 127).
If
there was one lesson to be learnt from the terrible persistence of these years
– what Meade terms the De’Vecchjs’ ‘persevering efforts and the liberal aid of
the Mysore state’ – its outcome was that disease control was bound to become a
major part of silkworm rearing, and therefore of any attempts at sericultural
development. In their susceptibility to various pathogens, interacting with
environmental conditions and nutrition, controlling disease would remain a
challenge in India for the foreseeable future. As has been seen, disaster could
appear in many guises, and almost invariably there was scope for even the
knowledgeable to attribute different causes to what had happened. Even Louis
Pasteur was at first bemused by inexplicable experimental results in his
research on pebrine. He took time to realise, even in the controlled conditions
of his laboratory, that he had more than just pebrine microbes amongst the
specimens on which he was working. Amongst Mysore rearers, the opinion reported
was that it was the De’Vecchj experiments themselves - rather than any
particular disease or event - that had provoked the almost universal
catastrophe was not wrong. The De’Vecchjs had left the country by August 1870
and it was not possible to question them further on the disaster they had so
sadly provoked. As has been seen, there was much room for misunderstanding and
confusion amongst even experienced and knowledgeable sericulturists as late as
the nineteenth century. (Jameson 1922)
Madras
Presidency and Mysore in the aftermath
The
input of the de'Vecchjs into south Indian sericulture was not entirely over
when they left Mysore. Their persuasive powers had been brought into play in
Madras when, at the height of their troubles in 1869 and in conjunction with a
certain Pater, they had approached the Madras Government to supply them also
with imported seed. ‘Rs 10,000 ‘if the eggs germinated successfully’. The
trials should be started in Kollegal and Hosur taluks, the only two areas of
the Presidency with substantial sericulture, and they should also consider
Tinnevelly in the far south. From the Board’s own enquiries of Collectors it
seemed that sericulture had been tried at one time or another in most
districts, but had died out in all but these and, in a small way, in Kadapa,
North Arcot and South Kanara. The Board decided to recommend the offer to
Government, but they put off deciding until the end of the financial year in
March 1871. (Geoghegan 1880: 73-74)
No comments:
Post a Comment