38 MAINE AGRICUIvTURAIv E;XPE;RIM]d;NT STATION. I9II. 



In October 1909 the following standard was published for 

 Maine : — "Opened oysters sold in bulk shall not contain ice, or 

 added water; nor more than 17 per cent, by weight of free 

 liquid ; nor less than 10 per cent, by weight of total dry solids." 



This standard was adopted after careful examination of both 

 solid pack and adulterated goods when it was found that the 

 free liquid which would drain from the pure oysters would not 

 exceed 15 per cent, and usually ran much under that figure while 

 the free liquid from the iced oysters ran sometimes as high as 

 65 per cent. It was found further that the oysters themselves 

 after being freed from the liquid had taken in water so that the 

 actual meat of the watered stock was only 8.6 per cent, whereas 

 the meat of the solid pack was 13.4 per cent. 



During the fall of 19 10 over 50 samples of oysters were pur- 

 chased by the deputy without being known to the dealer and 

 the results of the examination of these samples follow. The 

 situation was found on the whole to be better than was antici- 

 pated. Some of the samples were excellent, most of them were 

 at least fair, and only a very few gave results which seemed to 

 indicate adulteration. These were investigated with the results 

 given in the table. Sometimes a second sample showed marked 

 improvement over the first, ■ seeming to indicate more careful 

 handling or correction of fault. In only one case were oysters 

 found actually in contact with ice and this apparently occurred 

 during the illness and absence of the proprietor. No preserva- 

 tives were found in any of the oysters. 



Almost all oysters shipped into the state at present come in 

 sanitary, sealed packages with ice packed around the receptacle 

 in such a way that it cannot come in contact with the oysters 

 themselves and the same or similar packages are used in which 

 the' goods are exposed for sale. While this careful handling 

 is necessarily more expensive than the careless manner in which 

 they were formerly sold, the added cost seems to be more than 

 made up by the greater value received. 



In the following table the figures in the column headed "free 

 liquid" indicate the amount of liquid which would run from the 

 oysters through a colander in 10 minutes. The dry solids were 

 obtained by drying down a weighed amount of the drained oys- 

 ters to constant weight at 100° C, and the loss on boiling is the 

 loss in weight of 100 grams of the drained oysters after boiling 

 for 20 minutes with 400 cubic centimeters of distilled water. 



