Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1895-04-20
A Spider Farm.

There is but one SPIDER farm ID
the u. S. As far as the writer can
learn there are only two in the
world. Entomologists have collect
ed and raised spiders for purposes of
scientific observation and investiga-
ton, Just as bacilli and other unpleas.
ant animals are nurtured. Here and
there spider has been made a pet
of by some lonely prisoner of Chill
Ion or the Tombs, but spider farm
ing as a money-making industry is
yet in it's infancy. What in the
world is done with "a crop of spiders?
you ask. One has only to go four
miles from Philadelphia on the old
Lancaster Pike and ask for the farm
of Pierre Grantaire to see what can
be found nowhere else in this coun-
try and abroad only in little French
village in the department of the
Loire. 1t is necessary to explain at
once the reasons for the existence of
spider raising as an occupation, for
the customers are all silent and you
will never learn from one of them
about old Grantaire and his farm on
the Lancaster Pike.
1t is known, of course, that every
wine merchant, every bon-vivant,
every wealthy man who entertains
and pretends to give good dinner
has a great concern for his wine eel
lar, and to impress his guests and
friends with the age and merit OF its
vintages is desiratum always COW
eted. Nowadays q title may be
bought. family tree and coat of
arms made to order with greatest
ease. An old estate with gray and
ancestral mansion cost more, but
they are still in the market in this
country and still oftener abroad. A
vine cellar, however, cannot be
ready-made. Bins may be stocked
with costly vintages to order but the
atmosphere of age and worth has
hitherto only come with years and
could not be forced or hurried.
HOW THE INSECTS ARE USED.
Bottles of old Madeira and port
have absolute character only when
they are yelled in dust and cobwebs
-cobwebs above all. In word
then, Pierre Grantaire furnishes
spiders at so much per hundred for
distribution in the wine vaults of the
merchant and the noveaux richie.
His trade is chiefly with the whole
sale merchant, who is able to stock
cellar with new, shining. freshly
labeled bottles and in three months
see them yelled in ilmy cobwebs, so
that the effect of twenty years stor-
age is secured at small cost. The
effect upon customer can be mag
ined and is hardly to be measured in
dollars and cents. 1t Is o trifing
matter to cover the bins with dust.
That effect is easy to the veriest
tyro in the wine trade. But cobwebs
that is different matter-cob-
webs spun from cork to cork, cob
webs that drape the slender neck
like delicate lace when the flask is
brought to the light, the seal Of
years of slow mellowing and frui-
ton.
But a visit to the spider farm tells
it all in detail in a far more interest
ing way than can be impaired by
glittering generalities. The Lancas-
ter Pike is an old, old highway that
trembled to the tramp of marching
columns in the Revolution. In one
of the low, stone farm houses, huge
as to chimney, lives Pierre Gran
taire, veteran of the French army.
who was conscripted as middle
aged man from his fathers farm in
TO to fight the Germans. For ten
years he has lived here, a rather
unique figure among the matter-of-
fact farmers around him. For the
tri-colors always flies from his roof
on the Fourteenth of July, and the
colors are draped half mast on the
anniversary of the day that the hat
ed Prussians marched into Paris a
quarter of a century ago.
Old Grantaire has a wonderful
vegetable farm, and sends in the
choicest "green stuff " that is dis
played in the Philadelphia markets.
His neighbors know that he is mar
ket gardener, and also raises mush-
rooms, and rather envy him the re-
turns from his squads, that retail at
go cents pair this time of year.
But few of them know of the spider
raising 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 caller into the two rooms of
his dwelling, where his multi-legged
pets cover the walls and weave their
gossamer patterns everywhere.
The writer was fortunately able
to "work pull" as the phrase goes
in ward politics and elsewhere. He
happened to run across the spider
4 r.