Guangdong was a unique province in South China because the domestic economy o f its silk counties, located around the Pearl River Delta, was almost exclusively dependent on sericulture. In counties like Shunde, Nanhai and Zhongshan, many peasant households raised silkworms and planted mulberry trees as their fulltime occupation. The Pearl River Delta population actively engaged in silk producing activities was concentrated in a few localities such as Shunde, Zhongshan, and Nanhai, as shown in Table 2.3 In 1923, approximately 70 per cent o f Shunde's land area was set aside for mulberry trees and fish breeding, and 80 per cent o f the population was engaged in one or other form o f sericulture activities. In Nanhai, about half o f its population was engaged in sericulture farming. Outside o f these localities, places such as Sanshui and Dongguan recorded a relatively small percentage (less than 10 per cent) o f the population involved in the sericulture farm economy. However, the figures for Panyu county were not available. Shunde continued to be the most productive centre o f sericulture activities in the Delta region with the proportion o f it’s population involved in one or other aspect o f sericulture farming increasing to about 90 per cent in 1939 although the cultivated land area remained unchanged since 1923.4
3The figures shown in Table 2 are consistent for most o f the localities surveyed in the Pearl River Delta. Notable discrepancies occur in the estimates o f mulberry acreage for Shunde and Zhongshan counties. The estimates by the Lingnan Agricultural College were 1.5 and 4 times those o f the Guangdong Experimental Station for Shunde and Zhongshan counties respectively. The Guangdong survey conducted around 1922 indicated more conservative estimates for the sericulture industry whereas the figures by the Lingnan study were based on field data gathered a year later. The Lingnan survey was conducted during a penod o f prosperity (1922-1923) for the silk industry. Therefore, it most likely reflected the economic capacity o f the sericulture sector at that time rather than the economic reality o f the industry over a specific penod o f time.
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Table 2 - Mulberry Acreage and Population in Sericulture in Guangdong, c. 1923
Place Mulberry Land (mou)
(A ) (B ) % o f Total Land (B ) Population in Sericulture (B ) Total Popula tion (B ) % o f Total Population (B ) Shunde 4 3 6 ,0 0 0 6 6 5 ,0 0 0 70 1,440,000 1,800,000 80 Zhongshan 100,000 3 2 8 ,8 0 0 - 3 8 2 ,6 0 0 - - Nanhai 2 9 7 ,0 0 0 3 0 0 ,0 0 0 - 2 0 0 ,0 0 0 4 2 0 ,0 0 0 48 Sunwui 6 0 ,0 0 0 6 0 .0 0 0 10 5 0 ,0 0 0 1 ,0 0 0 ,0 0 0 5 Sanshui 30 ,0 0 0 3 0 ,0 0 0 10 2 5 ,0 0 0 3 2 0 ,0 0 0 7.8 Panvu 10,000 10,000 - 15,000 - - Dongguan & East River 2 8 ,6 0 0 2 8 ,6 0 0 - 2 5 ,0 0 0 2 ,2 4 5 ,0 0 0 1.1
W est River D is tricts 10,700 17,000 - 2 0 ,0 0 0 - - Tsinguen & Other North River Districts 6 ,0 0 0 16,000 10,000 5 1 5 ,0 0 0 1.9 Hokshaan 3 0 ,0 0 0 4,825 - 2 0 ,0 0 0 4 2 0 ,0 0 0 4.8 Sew ui - 5,000 - 1,000 2 0 5 ,0 0 0 0.5 Southwestern Districts - 500 - - - - TOTAL 1 ,0 0 8 ,3 0 0 1,46 5 ,7 2 5 - 2 ,1 8 8 ,6 0 0 - -
Sources: (A) 1922 estimates by Guangdong Experimental Station in Agriculture and Forestry, from Liu
Boyuan, Guangdong canye diaocha baogaoshu, Canton, 1922, pp. 83-4, as quoted from Robert Y. Eng,
Economic Imperialism in China: Silk Production and Exports, 1861-1932, Berkeley: University o f California,
1986, p. 100.
(B) 1923 estimates by Lingnan Agncultural College from Charles W. Howard and Karl P. Buswell,
A Survey o f the Silk Industry in South China, Hong Kong. Commercial Press, 1925, pp. 15-37.
The growth o f sericulture economy in Guangdong was facilitated by the excellent subtropical climate o f warm temperature and high humidity, which supported full-time sericulture throughout the year. Most peasant households were able to raise six or seven broods o f silkworms and support six mulberry leaf pickings per year. This was in contrast to the other major Chinese silk producing region located around the Kiangnan province on the Yangtze Delta which was able to support only two broods o f silkworms and two mulberry pickings per year. In the Pearl River Delta, mulberry trees grew faster in the alluvial plain and were less susceptible to flood waters than vegetables and arable crops.5
The sericulture industry in Guangdong had the ecological advantage o f "4 water 6 land" system o f mulberry cultivation with fish breeding that helped to prevent flooding in the paddy fields. Under this system, four-tenths o f a given parcel of land was dug up and large fresh-water fish ponds were formed. The excavated soil was piled on the remaining sixth- tenths o f the land and thus elevated the level o f the land. The water-logging resistant mulberry trees were cultivated on the elevated ground and sediments from the fish ponds were used to fertilize the soil. The mulberry leaves were used to feed the silkworms, and in return, the litter from the silkworms and dead silkworms furnished food to the fish.6 This technique o f sericulture farming enabled the peasants to support crops o f silkworms and m ulberry leaves around the year as a full-time commercial occupation, with fish breeding as a subsidiary activity. During the 1890s, Sanshui and Panyu counties, both originally agricultural areas, turned increasingly to mulberry cultivation and silkworm breeding. Shunde, Nanhai and Zhongshan counties together contributed about 85 per cent o f the total cocoon production o f Guangdong and Guangxi provinces in South China (see Table 2). Shunde alone was responsible for close to half the total production.
The expansion o f the Chinese silk industry was given a boost when the collapse o f French and Italian silk industry resulted in intense international demand for Chinese silk. This caused the rise o f silk prices in the export markets in the 1850s and 1860s. The local industrialists, who were keen to capitalise on the lucrative commercial prospect o f the sericulture industry, played a crucial role in promoting mulberry cultivation and silkworm breeding among the peasantry. Many peasant households were attracted by the profit on mulberry that could be ten times that o f rice cultivation, even though Guangdong was already a prosperous double-cropping rice region.7
6Ibid, p. 108; So, The South China, pp. 84-5.
7Some research literature show that the mulberry profit fluctuated according to the market prices and sometimes it might be around three to five times more than that o f rice cultivation, and can be as low as the same pnce for rice. So, The South China. p. 84; E-tu Zen Sun, "Sericulture and Silk Textile Production in Chmg China," in W.E. Wilcott (ed ), Economic Organization in Chinese Society, Stanford, California: Stanford University, 1972, pp. 79-108.
51 The rapid development o f the sericulture farm economy in Guangdong from the 1870s was closely linked to the expansion o f the steam filature8 industry which gradually displaced the hand-reeled silk cottage industry. In the period between 1882 and 1883, filature silk represented approximately 13 per cent o f the total silk exports in Canton but had consolidated its hold on the export market to about 76 per cent by 1890.9 The quality of the steam filature silk was deemed to be superior to that o f the hand-reeled silk thread which was coarse and irregular in texture. Moreover, the steam filature silk fetched a higher price range o f about 30 per cent to 60 per cent than the hand-reeled raw silk, and was widely demanded by the American and French m anufacturers.10 At the turn o f this century, steam filature white silk became the most important export commodity in Guangdong and its output was primarily directed toward Western markets, rather than to the domestic and non-Westem foreign markets.
With the commercialization o f sericulture, peasants earned considerable profits from raising cocoons primarily to get the supply o f raw silk which they then sold to the local steam filatures. As more peasants got involved in the business o f supplying raw silk, they also assumed the control o f the market price due to overwhelming demand from filatures. Supported by rising silk prices due to rising demands in the international silk market, the filatures inflated the price o f the cocoons so much that it was no longer profitable for the peasants to perform the silk-reeling process, once a thriving domestic enterprise mostly managed by women. The expansion o f filatures resulted in rural villages shifting their primary economy from silk reeling and weaving to the more profitable venture o f rearing cocoons. By the 1920s, the predominant silk counties o f Shunde, Zhongshan and Nanhai
8For further details on sericulture and the silk reeling process, see Lillian M. Li, China's Silk Trade: Traditional Industry in the Modem World, 1842-1937, Council on East Asian Studies Monograph No. 97, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard University Press, 1981, pp. 18-30.
Ting, Economic Imperialism, p. 53 (Table 3.5).
1 T rance was the world leading trade market for raw silk and silk weaving m the early 19th century. However, its sericulture industry was severely devastated by a silkworm disease called pebnne in 1854 and since then, French sericulture never recovered although its silk weaving industry continued to prosper. Besides France, the Italian sericulture industry was also seriously paralysed by the pebnne epidemic. Then, the United States emerged as the leading customer for raw silk early this century and N ew York supplanted Lyon (m France) as the leading international silk centre. See So, The South China, p. 106; ibid., pp.26-30, and op.cit., pp. 81-3..
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in the Pearl River Delta were responsible for producing approximately one-seventh o f the world output o f silk.11