210 Our Food Mollusks 



began to sell oysters, which he first steamed and then 

 hermetically sealed in tin cans. This preparation was 

 received with favor, and the new trade grew very rap- 

 idly. Records furnished by C. S. Maltby inform ns 

 that in 1865 1,875,000 bushels of oysters were packed 

 raw in Baltimore, and 1,360,000 bushels were preserved. 

 In 1869 he numbers in Maryland 55 packers, who, at 500 

 to 2,500 cans per day, put up 12,000,000 to 15,000,000 

 cans in a season of seven months, using 5,000,000 bush- 

 els. Sixty ' raw ' houses that year employed 3,000 

 hands, while the packers gave employment to 7,000 per- 

 sons. Large quantities of canned oysters were annually 

 sent, at that time, by steamship to Havana." 



Mr. Richard Edmonds, describing the industry of the 

 same period, wrote in regard to it : — " The raw-oyster 

 business has always been more profitable and less subject 

 to the vicissitudes of trade, although there are many 

 losses from spoilt oysters when the weather happens to 

 turn suddenly warm. Raw oysters, after being opened, 

 are packed in small, air-tight cans holding about a quart, 

 and these are arranged in rows in a long wooden box, 

 with a block of ice between each row, or they are emptied 

 into a keg, half -barrel, or barrel made for this purpose. 

 When the latter plan is pursued, the keg or barrel is filled 

 to about five-sixths of its capacity, and then a large piece 

 of ice is thrown in, after which the top is fastened on as 

 closely as possible, and it is at once shipped to the West, 

 usually by special oyster trains or by express. Packed 

 •in this way, with moderately cold weather, the oysters 

 will keep very well for a week or ten days. During the 

 most active part of the ' raw ' season, there are daily 

 oyster trains of from thirty to forty cars from Baltimore 

 to the West, where nearly all the Baltimore oysters are 





