"&NAILERIES."

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 62, 10 September 1904, Page 13

The rearing" of enails ns a food-product is tho subject of an articlo in the July Ckambcrs's Jouyial. It is by no menus a new industry, nnd it is to-day carried on in various European, countries, especially in France and Italy. Many species, the writer tells us, aro regarded us edible j but the large whito snail (H«Hx pomatia) Seems to be tho snail that is generally preferred. The Romans roared idiis species in enormous quantities in gardens or enclosures, banked or surrounded with nshes nnd sawdust, so that the emails could not got out, feeding thorn on bran and sodden wine. In tho United States edible snails are frequently to bo seen exposed for sale; but they aro not raised in that country, and those on snle havo been shipped to America alivo from Europe In Vionna, again, during Lent, there is a snail market, tho snails coming in barrels from Swabia. The great centre for the consumption of snails, however, is Pttm and somo of tho French provinces. Thoro is, indeed, a very large trade in this commodity in Franco, tho large whito snail being in special demnnd in Pnris, whilo the garden and wood snails aro m common use among poorer consumers in nil parts of France. Bordolaise is simply a combination of snails, red wino, butter, and garlic. ' Tho collecting of snnils ia carried on in the French provinces all day long by men, women, and children, who with iron hooks search for them at the foot of thorn hpjges and undor ivy, and in winter in old walls. If lucky, a good sonrcher will collect from ono thousand to fifteen hundred enuils. Theso aro paid for according to their weight, about a thousand snails averaging ten kilogrammes, nnd tho payment varies with the prices current in tho Paris market, but it usunlly ranges from twenty to forty centimes per kilo. Tho "work, therefore, cannot be enid. to b» well paid. — Westminster Budgot.