AN AMERICAN LEECH FARM.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3183, 10 September 1881, Page 3

AN AMERICAN LEECH FARM.

An article in the Scientific American de* scribes a leech farm in Island, founded in 1841 by a Mr H. Witte. It covers thirteen acres, and is the only one in America. The breeding ponds are oblong, and each is an acre and a half in extent. The bottoms are of clay, the margins of peat, in which the leechee lay their eggs in June. The eggs are deposited in ' cocoons,' of a gelatinous material, at first frothy, but which becomes firmer and more glue-like after the eggs are deposited. From each cocoon thirteen to twenty-seven young leeche3 are developed, and issue from the cocoons in September, being hatched by the heat of the sun. At first they are no thicker than a pin, but even then are capable of cutting through the skin of a horse. They are not ready for the market until three years old. The leeches are fed once in six months on blood placed in linen bags. Sometimes a year will elapse before a full meal is entirely digested. This method of feeding certainly seems more humane than that adopted by a leech farmer at the foot of Harz mountains, who was accustomed to hire men at 6d a day to stand in the water for half an hour daily, so that the leeches might have a full meal of human blood. The greatest enemies to young leeches are water rats and shrews. A high temperature kills them ; but they may be frozen in ice, and if thawed gently be found uninjured. Mr Witte's sales average a thousand leeches a day. About thirty thousand are imported into the United States every year. The Western States and California are the heaviest buyers. In the Eastern and Southern States the demand has fallen off of late years. —The Lancet.