560 HISTOEY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



land and New York, bat Providence supplies Boston, eastern New England, and Canada. All the 

 openers there are men, and call themselves " cutters," using the knife in a different way from 

 either the New Haven or New York methods. 



Nearly half a century ago one or two New Haven men of energy conceived the idea of taking 

 their warehouses to the oysters, instead of bringing the mollusks so far to the sales-room. They 

 therefore opened branch houses in Baltimore. Others followed, and the names of Maltby, Mallory, 

 Hemingway, Rowe, and their confreres, long familiar in Connecticut, became equally well known 

 along the Chesapeake. All the great Baltimore firms of old standing originated in Fair Haven, 

 just as Wellfleet, an obscure village on Cape Cod, supplied Portland, Boston, and Providence with 

 its oystermen. The result was the same in both cases; the home interests retrograded when metro- 

 politan advantages began to be used in competition, and at Fair Haven considerable and rapid 

 changes in methods, as well as the results of trade, have come about. 



None of these pioneers of the great Baltimore packing concerns was more enterprising than 

 C. S. Maltby. As his business increased he established a line of wagons from Baltimore to Pitts- 

 burgh, and was thus enabled to supply the West with fresh oysters long before the Baltimore and 

 Ohio Railroad had stretched out its track to that then distant region. 



A few years later Mr. A. Field, also a native of Connecticut, 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 rapidly. Records furnished by C. S. Maltby inform us 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 bushels. Sixty "raw "houses 

 that year employed 3,000 hands, while the packers gave employment to 7,500 persons. Large 

 quantities of canned oysters were annually sent, at that time, by steamship to Havana. In 1872 

 the same notes record as opening oysters, 2,000 men ; making cans, 300 men ; box makers, 50 

 men ; clerks and laborers, 300. All these were in the " raw " trade of Baltimore. The profits to 

 be had, and the stress of competition caused fraudulent methods to be introduced by dishonest 

 firms, and the business at Baltimore was threatened with ruin. A combination of reputable firms 

 was formed, under the name of the Union Oyster Company, to protect themselves, but this succeeded 

 only partially, and the " steamed " trade is now in a low condition. " The raw-oyster business," 

 as Mr. Edmonds observes in his account heretofore referred to, " 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 oyster 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 

 consumed. From the shores of the Chesapeake Bay as far as Detroit there is scarcely a city or 

 town (connected with any of the great trunk lines) which is not supplied with Maryland raw oys- 

 ters. Farther west, and to a considerable extent in European countries, the demand is supplied 

 by steamed oysters. The oysters used in the raw fcrade are of a finer quality, and consequently 

 command better prices than steamed." 



