MONEY IN SNAIL BREEDING

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 14 December 1916, Page 3

MONEY IN SNAIL BREEDING

A CHANCE FOR HELENSVILLE

NOT far from Pozieres, where our troops were fighting, there is a snail farm, where escargots —as edible snails are called —are bred for the Paris market. The snails are sold by the " cag," about one hundred thousand" qf them making from eight to ten cags, according to size and quality.

Snails are immensely prolific, so that a snail farm, once starte.d; is selfsupporting as far as the replenishment of the stook gqea.

Their food cqmes tq a - gqad deal, though, for a growing snail is about the most voracious thing on earth, possessing no fewer than twenty thqus-. and teeth and an interiqr which is practically all stomach.

We (ECHO) can vouch for the truth of the last paragragh, as in a very small garden for weeks past we have harvested a quart of snails —real hard shellbacks — one morning, and a pint of tender ones the next morning. As for possessing teeth by the thousand, that rm^st h,e true, because in one night w,e have rows of- beans and, p,eas 660 ft long- mown dqwn. iev,ei with the soil.