The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-12-25
A SPIDER FARM.

Of Chillon of the Tombs, but spider
farming as a money-making industry
Is yet in its infancy. What in the
world is done with 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 country, and
abroad only in little French village
in the Department of the Loire.
Pierre Grantaire furnishes spiders at
so much hundred for distribution in
the wine vaults of the merchant and
the nouveau richie. His trade is chiefly
with the wholesale merchant, who is
able to stock cellar with new, shining,
freshly labelled bottles, and in three
months see them yelled with filmy cob
webs, so that the effect of twenty
years of storage is secured at a small
cost. The effect upon customer can
be imagined, and is hardly to be meas
ured in dollars and cents. 1t is a tri-
fling matter to cover the bins with dust.
That effect is easy to the veriest tyro
in the wine trade. But cobWebs-that
Is different-cobwebs spun from cork to
cork, cobwebs that drape the slender
neck like delicate lace when the flash
is brought to the light-the seal of
years of slow mellowing and fruition.
The Lancaster 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 the chimney, lives Pierre Gran
taire, a veteran of the French army,
who was conscripted as middle-aged
man from his fathers farm in 1870 to
fight the Prussians. For ten years he
has lived here, a rather unique figure
among the matter of-fact farmers
around him. For the tricolor always
flies from his roof on July IA, and the
colors are draped half-mast on the an
niversary Of the day that the hated
Prussians marched into Paris a quar-
ter of a century ago.
Old Grantaire has a wonderful vege-
table 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
that retail at sixty cents a pair this
time of year. But few Of them know
of the spider-r raising industry, which
makes a substantial part of Pierre's
| business 1t is not to the old mans in
| terest to have this advertised, and he
seldom takes a caller into the rooms of
his dwelling where his multi-legged
| pets cover the walls and weave their
| gossamer patterns everywhere.
SPIDERS ON EVERY HAND.
| Tt was bit shuddering for the visi-
| tor, who had been brought up to smash
a spider with slipper or whatever
came the handiest, to be brought into a
room where there We're spiders in front
of him, spiders to the rear of him, myr-
lads of spiders on every hand
The walls We're covered with wire
| squares from six inches to a foot
across, like magnified sections of the
wire fence used to inclose poultry
yards. Behind these wire screens the
walls had been covered with rough
| planking. There We're cracks between
boards apparently left with design,
and their weather. beaten surfaces were
dotted with holes and splintered crew
of the room were covered with small
wire frames, wooden boxes and glass
| jars.
| All of these wires in the room were
covered over by patterns of lace trace
| ~, in the geometrical outlines fash
| toned by the spider artists, inspired by
| the mysterious instinct which has made
| them weave their filmy snares In the
| same fashion since the world began.
| The sunlight streamed through the
! open door and the room seemed hung
with curtains of fine woven lacework
The king of this fairy palace raped
his stubby pipe against the door, and
the webs were dotted with black spots
as the spiders scampered from their re-
treats 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 their
glass roofing.
| "They think I feed them now" said
! Pierre, "but / 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 not
crush them more. You will say: The
spider can teach me something. / will
watch him. He Is diplomat, an arch
| itect, mathema tician. His knowl-
edge is worth having All, there is a
| fine fellow running on your neck
Don't knock him off. He will not bite
| you. They are harmless. He wishes
to give you a bon jour and make your
acquaintance.
You wish to know of the business
first? That is like you people-money
| first, then the sentiment. There are
| two thousand spiders in this room, all
| raising families and minding their own
business. Is not that a teaching of the
world and lesson already? You see,
in these frames I breed my pets, and
when the infants are big enough to run
about l take them in the next room
| where they can set up for themselves
| as you say. It is from there | sell
most. They are great cannibals, my
/ pets; they eat their children and the
children eat each other. SO 1 must get
good price for those that survive
| their childhood.
ut is not all kinds of spiders that
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, indeed; 1 have
sought out kinds that weave them