A Peculiar Business

James Partit aud his children carn all tho moncy they make raising leeehes, for the work of breeding the blootluckers on tho Partit fárm on Toma ver, nenr Lacy, N. J., is nothing comyared with tho labor of catchiñ'g them The wary leech will take hold of uothing but human flesb, so the members of the Partit family, big and little, plunge their lega into the swamp and draw tfiem up presently with the prey attached. Farmer Partit doesn't seem to think little blood letting hnrts one. "They are as good aa a dose of spring pfaysie," sayshe. "Why, me and the boys get so fat and healthy doing nothing 11 winter that we need something like ttiis to keep ns in order. If we flshed too long at a time, they might do som harm, but we know when to stop. Aftr the season is over we feel fresher and better than if we hadn't been leeching. They are just like mosquitoes - they iuck out all the bad blood and leave the good, and that's why, I suppose, we leel so good af ter a month's work in the swamp. I think we'd all have malaria down in this wet place if it wasn't fo the leeches. No man could wade through uch a mudhole without getting malaria nless something helped him. " His farm yields 500,000 leeches a jear, and the price is 20 or 30 cents for 100, giving an annual income of $1,000 to the family. The market is New Xork or Philadelphia, where the leeches Me distributed to the trade. Half a centrury ago this wonld have been a great business, but the belief in leeches has fallen off in this country. Europe clings to the practice, and Paris eonsumes 3,000,000 leechos yearly, while London finds use for over 7,000,000 a year. James Partit or his boys, when wading, discovered the presence of the leeches in his swamps. He looked up the subject and decided that he wonld supply the American market, which hitherta had depended on Europe. He found that buyers preferred the Hnngarian fellow of olive green without spots, or else the Germán leech, with dark green body epotted below with black. He got a few specimens and put them in the pond. They multiplied rapidly af ter their enemies, the water snakes, were exterminated, and soon the first leech pond in the country was established. The yonng are ready for market in about a year, but reproduction takes three years. The average life of a leech is 15 or 20 years. Usually a healthy man can fisli in tbc ewamp four or five houra without loging cnough blood to exhaust him. The leeck kas three jaws and from 20 to 90 teeth. When these get going, in a short time the leech will swallow iive times his weight in blood. All this is more pleasant than the practice elsewhere about New York of fattening leeches for the market on de crepit old horses whioh have been