American Fisheries Society 163 



the shell or 2.75 pounds of the meats and liquor in their 

 natural proportion are equal in food value to one pound 

 of lean beef. 



In addition to being palatable, digestible and nutritious 

 the mussel is an abundant, inexpensive food. In the bays 

 and estuaries of our north Atlantic Coast they grow in great 

 beds, often acres in extent, reaching from between tide 

 marks out into several fathoms of water. A fisherman in 

 Oyster Bay, L. I., told me that he shipped 100 barrels of 

 mussels a day to New York during the past February and 

 March, making a net profit of 75 cents per barrel. If there 

 was a demand for ten times that quantity the Oyster Bay 

 locality alone could supply it and there are a hundred other 

 places in Long Island Sound that are just as productive. 

 All but a very small percentage of these beds are being 

 ignored and wasted. 



There is one objection which has been advanced against 

 eating mussels. They spoil quickly when removed from 

 the water and develop ptomaines which cause serious diges- 

 tive disorders producing a swelling of the head and abdomen 

 with red spots on the skin known as "mussel rash." Mr. 

 C. H. Walters, of the New York State Fish Commission, 

 has informed me that a patient afiiicted thus may obtain 

 prompt relief by drinking a pint of strong, black coffee. 

 Such cases of poisoning need not prejudice one against 

 this food, however, for similar effects resulting from the 

 eating of oysters, clams and lobsters are much more com- 

 mon. If the same precautions are taken in marketing mus- 

 sels that are taken with other shellfish they will be found 

 perfectly harmless. Most of the trouble which has resulted 

 so far has been from unscrupulous dealers who have 

 palmed off on their customers barrels of decayed mussels 

 covered on top with a few fresh ones. To those who 

 wish to develop the trade I cannot emphasize too strongly 

 the importance of selling strictly fresh, living mussels. 

 They should be taken from deep water and by all means 

 marketed or properly preserved on the day they are col- 

 lected. 



