The herald., 1895-07-07
GRANTAIRE'S
SPIDER FARM
The Only One in the United
States, But Others
in France
RAISES SPIDERS TO SELL
But the Fellow Who Buys Them Wants
to Convert New Wine Cellars
Into Old Ones
RAISES SPIDERS TO SELL


learn, there are only two spider farms in
the world. Entomologists have raised
spiders for purposes of scientific observa-
tion and investigation. just as bacilli and
other unpleasant animals are nurtured.
Here and there spider has been made a
pet OF by some lonely prisoner of Chillon
or the Tombs but spider farming as a
money making industry is yet in its in
fancy. What in the world is done with
a crop Of spiders? you ask. One has only
to so four miles from Philadelphia on the
old Lancaster pike and ask for the farm
of Pierre Grantare to see what can be
found nowhere else in this country. and
abroad only in a little French village in
the department of the Loire.
Pierre Grantare furnishes spiders at
SO much per hundred for distribut on in
| the wine vaults of the merchants and the
nouveaux riches. His trade is chiefly
with the Who'll, sale merchant, who is able
to stock a cellar with new, shining, fresh
ly labeled bottles and in three months see
| them veied with tilmy cobwebs, SO that
the effect of twenty years of storage is Sc
| cured at small cost. The effect upon a
| customer can be imagined, and is hardly
to be measured in dollars and cents. 1t
| is a trfiing matter to cover the bins with
dust. The effect is easy to the veriest
| tyro in the wine trade. But cUbwehs--
that is a different matter --cobwebs spun
from cork to cork, cobwebs that drape
| the slender neck like delicate lace when
| the flask is brought to light-the seal of
years of slow mellowing and fruition.
The Lancaster pike is an old, old high
way that trembled to the tramp Of
marching columns in the revolution. In
| one of the low stone farmhouses, huge as
| to chimney, lives Pierre Grantaire. vet
eran of the French army. who was con-
scripted as IA middle-aged man from his
fathers farm in 1870 to fight the Prus-
SLAMS. For ten years he has lived here,
a rather unique figure among the matter
of-fact farmers around him. For the tri-
color always flies from his roof on the
14th of July. and the colors are draped
half-mast on the anniversary of the day
that the hated Prussians marched into
| Paris, quarter of a century ago.
Old Grantaire has wonderful vegeta-
BILE farm. and sends in the choicest
"green stuff that is displayed in the
| Philadelphia markets. His neighbors
know that he is market gardener and
also raises mushrooms. and rather envy
| him the returns from his SQUADS, tn at
retail at 60 cents per pair this time of
year. But few of them know of the spi-
| der-rasing industry, which makes a sub
stantial part of Pierre's business. 1t is
| not to the old mans interest to have this
advertised, and he seldom takes a caller
| into the two rooms OF his dwelling where
his multi-legged pets cover the walls and
weave their gossamer patterns every
| where.
1t wss bit shuddery for the visitor,
who had been brought up to smash a
spider with slipper, or whatever came
handlest, to be brought into room
where there were spiders in front of him.
spiders to the rear of him, myrlads oi
spiders on every hand.
The walls we're covered with wire
squares from six inches to a foot across.
like magniied sections of the wire fence
used to enclose poultry yards. Behind
these wire screens the walls had been GOV.
cred with rough planking. There were
cracks between the boards. apparently lef,
with design, and their weatherbeaten
surfaces were dotted with knotholes and
| splintered crevices. Long tables running
the lenrth of the room were covered with
small wire frames, wooden boxes and
| glass jars.
| All of these wires in the room were GOV.
| cred over by patterns of lace tracery, in
the geometrical outlines fashioned by the
spider artists. inspired by the m ysterious
instinct winch has made them weave
their ilmy snaies in the same fashion
since the world began. The sunlight
streamed through the open door and the
| room seemed hung with curtains of elf
woven lace work. The king of this fairy
palace raped his stubby pipe against the
door, and the webs were dotted with
| their retreats in the wall CRACKS and a
score of Misunderstanding pets as big as
half dollars emerged from their crannies
on the table and clustered against tneii
glass roofing.
| Pierre, "put l fool them for you. They
have brains, these little creatures. All,
they are cunning! After you see them
and tell you of them you will never
crush them more. You will say: The
spider can teach me something. l will
watch him. He is diplomat, an archi-
tect, mathematician, His knowledge Is
worth having All, there is fine fellow
| running on your neck. Dom knock him
off. He will not bite you. He is harm.
less. He wishes to give you bon jour and
make your acquaintance.
"You wish to know of the business
first? That is like you people-monneoy
first. then the sentiment. There are 200(
spiders in this room, all raising families
and minding their own business. Is not
that teaching to the world and lesson
already? You see, in these frames l breed
my pets, and when the infants are big
enough to run about take them in the
next room. where they can set up fol
themselves. 1t is from there | sell most
They are great cannbals, my pets; they
eat their children and the children ea1
each other. So must get good price FOL
those that survive their childhood.
''It is not all kinds of spiders tn at make
webs. There are those that live in holes
in the ground, and make for themselves
trap doors, and some make soft nests In
cracks, while others spin small homes in
the grass or in the room corner. No. in
deed have sought out kinds that weav'
themselves fine large webs Of lines ant
circles. They only look artistic in thu
wine cellar or on the bouteille. They ar
the selected ones. They are three fami
lies, the names of them the Spira Vulga
ris, the Zlla and the Nephiia Plumipes
which the entomologists will tell you arr
the grand web spinners of the world.
But what money is there in it? yol
ask. Mon Dieu! money, money-alway
money. |, who love my pets, to be al
ways thinking of what they sell for.
| will tell you, now, and then you will tall
no more of money, and can show yo'
something. A customer comes to me- b.
Philadelphia, or perhaps he writes; h,
says that he has just stocked q cellar o
five-year-old port. or Burgundy. or some
thing else; the bottles have been brushed
clean in shipping; they look new ant
common; they will not sell for old wine
he has attached to them labels of twenty
thirty or forty years ago. some year If
grand vintage; he tells me SO many hun
dred bottles l know how many of m,
pets will soon cover his cellar in cobweb
of the finest old kind; put them in littl
small paperboxes, pair in box; shi]
them in a crate, with many holes for air
maybe l send two, three, four hunuret
spiders: for them / ask half franc each