Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 38, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1902 — New Jersey’s Leech Industry. [ARTICLE]

New Jersey’s Leech Industry.

“Hirutlo day” is an anniversary in New Jersey that is never heard of elsewhere. It is the day on which the men who gather leeches for medical use go to town to collect their pay, leaving it till this jiarticular day. Leech buying is not the work for a novice. The question of price is not at all involved in the game, as the leech catchers have the only trust permitted on New Jersey soil, and they fix the price per dozen at which they will sell. Their prices range from if 1.80 to $3.80 per dozen this year, according to the age of the leech. A leech under tho age of eighteen months is not a medicinal leech. His suctorial proboscis is not fully developed until he passes seventeen months, although he acquires a full set of semicircular teeth in his jaws at the age of one year.