Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1896-05-04
QUEER FARMS.
AGRICULTURE ABANDONED FOR
MORE UNIQUE CROPS.
Eaising Spiders for Profit and De-
ccit-Muskrat and Skunks
Farms-Failure of
Bear Farm.
TTHERE are all sorts of queer

inality, but some of them have hit
upon ways of earning n livelihood, or,
at least, which, to say the least, are
unique.
For novelty the first place should
certainly be awarded to Pierre Gran
taire, an ingenious Frenchman, who
has farm on the old Lancaster Pike
road, few miles from Philadelphia.
Old Granta1re is what is termed mar
ket gardener, and his Vegetables are
among the choicest that reach the
Philadelphia market. But he has an
other source of income which his
neighbors know very little about, for
it would not be to the old mans in
terest to encourage competition.
Much OF it, in fact, would simply put
a stop to it altogether, for it depends
for its success upon the general ignor.
ance Of the public concerning It,
Everybody knows that the value of
wine increases with age. Nearly every
body knows, too, that figures can be
made to lie, especially when they pur-
port to give the date of the vintage of
any particular brand, and, therefore,
purchasers have become exceedingly
skeptical concerning them. Labels of
twenty, thirty or forty years ago are
not accepted as conclusive evidence of
age. So the unscrupulous dealer tries
to supply what might be termed cir
cumstautial evidence of age.
Among these latter are cobwebs.
When you go iuto cellar and see an
abundant tracery of cobwebs extend
ing from cork to cork, and covering
the necks of the TASKS with something
more delicate and filmv than the finest
of lace work, though you may doubt
what the dealer say, you believe what
the spiders have written.
Old Grantaire supplies spiders to
make people believe tales of the deal
ers. He devotes two rooms of his
dwelling to their breeding. He learned
the trick in France. His spiders are
all big, Industrious fellows, and pro-
fuse web spinners. He gets for them
$40 hundred.
That is a pretty big price, but then
they are not ordinary spiders. aud he
knows just what they can do. A dealer
sends him word that he has so many
hundred bottles that he wants "cob-
webbed," and he sends them Just as
many spiders as will suffice to do the
work. OF course the dealers supply
the dust, and in two or three months
after the spiders have been let loose
those bottles will look rs though they
hadn't been disturbed for twenty
years. iGrantaire is said to be the only
man in the country who makes u spe
clal business of "raising" spiders. He
has had as many us 10000 on hand al
one time.
Not far from Hiram Haskins, the
celebrated Pennsylvania snake farmer,
lives Ezekiel Van Ettep, called
"zeke" by his neighbors for short,
and said to be a great grandson OF
Urian Van Etten, the famous Deer.
slayer of Fenimore Cooper's immortal
tales--who has turned what was once
the most Improbable portion of his
farm into II comfortable livelihood.
He has turned thirty acres of swamp
land into a muskrat farm. For the
pelts of his muskrats, which he sells
to fur dealers, he gets from fifty cents
to 81 each.
Persons had trapped muskrats on
the swamp land for years, while he
was scratching hard for living, be-
fore the idea came into his head that
there was money in muskruts, and
then it WAS his wife who put it there.
Then he went to work aud read up on
muskrats, put big board fence
around his land, served notice on his
neighbors that hereafter it was private
property, planted the dry spots of his
swamp with "skunk cabbage" land
other stuff that muskrats feed upon,
and stocked the brook and muck pond
with perch and other fish.
He catches his muskrats alive in
traps, that he may reserve the best oil
them Tor breeding purposes. One fall
he sold as many as 1000 skins.
A skunk can produce an odor thai
no man ever yearns to smell second
time. But there is money in skunks
nevertheless. Many woman who
prides herself on wearing Canadian
seal or Russian seal would be shock co
beyond measure did she know that hel
furs were merely skunk skins. That il
why skunk skins are never sold as sucl
except to manufacturers.
There are several skunk farms in the
country. The largest, probably, is tina
of the Ithaca Fur Company. about six
miles south of that city. A few months
ago there were 500 skunks on th,
farm. They multiply rapidly, and il
is expected that in the course of three
years there will be 10, 900 of them, by
which time twenty-five acres will bt
fenced for their accomm odation.
A skunk is valuable in proportion
to the amount of black his fur con
tains, and it is the aim of the scientific
skunk farmer to eliminate by breeding
the white hairs found on nearly al
skunks in their wild state. The bes
skunk skins-those that contain only
little white-now bring So each
Besides this, good fat skunk Yields
a quart of oil, which has a CONNER
cial value, and is held by many coun
49, L., e.