OYSTER-INDUSTRIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 307 



arranging the sails seems the best suited to the purpose, ami has been 

 generally adopted. 



The "sharps" generally hold from seventy to eighty bushels of oys- 

 ters.* 



The New Haven banks have a very high reputation, and the number 

 of bushels planted annually is estimated at 250,000. 



The establishments engaged in the transportation business are mostly 

 at Fair Haven, a charming village, beautifully situated.! Divided into 

 two parts by the Quinipiac River, they have been connected by means of 

 a viaduct or railroad bridge.! 



The establishments of the dealers are on both sides of the river, and 

 many of them are built partly in the water, in order that the fishermen 

 may discharge their cargoes with greater ease. 



The operation of taking the oysters from the shell is performed ex- 

 clusively by women, chiefly Irish, and the process is very nearly the 

 same as in New York. Seated before a stand, loaded with a quantity 

 of oysters, each one is supplied with a small hammer, with which she 

 breaks the edge of the shells upon a blade of iron inserted in the stand. 

 She then opens the oysters with a thin knife and throws the fish into a 

 wooden pail placed at her right side. These women receive 8 cents a gal- 

 lon, including the juice. They can earn at this price, if skillful, $2 a 

 day in the winter season, when the work lasts throughout the day ; but 

 ordinarily they do not make more than a dollar and a half. About 

 seven or eight hundred women earn their living in this way and some of 

 the dealers employ sixty of them at a time. 



As soon as a woman has finished a measure, the inspector of the 

 establishment sets it down to her account, and empties it immediately 

 into a tin trough, pierced with holes and placed under the spigot of a 

 water-tank. The oysters are then well washed, in a full stream of water, 

 and moved about with the hands, in order that any small -pieces of the 

 shell may be carried off by the ourreut. They are then thrown into a 

 cask. 



The dealers send raw oysters away in small wooden barrels, called 

 kegs, or in tin cans, containing about a quarter of a gallon. 



During the winter, wooden barrels are considered a sufficient pro- 

 tection; but in warm weather, and when the mollusks are to be sent to 

 a distance, tin boxes are used exclusively. 



The work of packing is accomplished in the same building where the 



* These boats, which are quite graceful in form, might be used with advantage in 

 France, in bays, rivers, ponds, &c, where the water is not rough. 



+ Some of these establishments are at Oyster Point, on the western part of the bay. 



t At Fair Haven the Quinipiac is about a mile and a half wide, and is protected 

 from the winds on the south and east by a chain of wooded hills, lying parallel with 

 its course. It forms a beautiful smooth sheet of water, until its entrance into the bay, 

 where the currents are very strong, but not sufficiently so to disturb the plantations 

 established in the bed of the river. Some of the dealers, before using the oysters, 

 deposit them for two or three days in the Quinipiac, the saltish water giving the flesh 

 a better appearance. 



