Changa Manga silkworm eggs (about 3 million eggs) from France. To house the worms, he created long sheds from bamboo and dried grass. The worms’ feed consisted entirely of mulberry leaves obtained from felled trees in the forest. The worms fed on 70 hundredweights of leaves a day. In 1916, the Governor of Punjab Sir Michael O'Dwyer visited the silk experiment where the silkworms had started developing cocoons. The governor left pleased with Booth-Tucker’s work. The Salvation Army Silk Camp remained a sustainable venture for a year after the governor’s visit, although changes to the climate later led to its decline. The
Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire Smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire In the mid-6th century AD, two monks, with the support of the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, successfully smuggled silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire, which led to the establishment of an indigenous Byzantine silk industry. This acquisition of silk worms from China allowed the Byzantines to have a monopoly of silk in Europe. Silk, which was first produced sometime during the fourth millennium BC by the Chinese, was a valuable trade commodity along the Silk Road. By the first century AD, there was a steady flow of silk into the Roman Empire.