Possibilities of sericulture industry in the Province of Bombay

E. S. Ramanath specialised in sericulture and ericulture. In 1933, the Government of the Princely State of Mysore sent him to Japan to study the rearing of silk worms. He sailed in Tango Maru from Colombo in Sri Lanka to Tokyo - a journey of nearly a month. He worked primarily in Yokohama, Kyoto, and Nagasaki. Upon his return in 1935, he worked in Mysore State, where he was in charge of silk farms in in Kolar, Channapatna, Sidlaghatta, and Kunigal during different periods. The Government of the British-ruled Bombay Province availed of his expertise in the the rearing of silkworms, and funded a study, which is presented in the book below. E. S. Ramanath passed away in February, 1943, before he could truly see the fruits of his labour in the nascent silk industry in Bombay and Mysore States.

E. R. Ramachandran writes:

My father, Mr. E.S. Ramanath had written a book in 1940, 74 years ago on sericulture Industry in Province of Bombay. None of his children knew of the existence of this book. My eldest brother, Balu, now 89 years old, who lives with his daughter in the U.S., learnt  to use a computer recently. By chance, he stumbled on the existence of this book on Google in October 2014. We tried to find a copy of the book all over India, but failed. Finally, we approached the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. They had a copy! The lady there was kind enough to  send a scanned copy. She also said there may be another copy in University of California, Davis. My niece's husband Dr. Raju Pande is a professor of Computer Science at Davis. He found a copy of the book in their library.

It was nothing short of a miracle! A book written 74 years ago by my father, of which we had no idea, was found in a library just five minute away from the current home my brother Balu, who had found about existence of such a book just a couple of months back!