FISHERIES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
157 
on piles, on or near its oyster beds at Miilbrae. The employes live and 
sleep at these stations, and also keep their boats and scows there. A 
watch is kept to prevent depredations. One company has bored an 
artesian well 250 feet deep into the bottom of the bay ; this furnishes 
an abundaut supply of fresh water that is pumped into a tank by a wind- 
mill, and carried by piping a mile distant to its other station. The 
oysters are tonged and loaded upon scows. The latter are secured 
head and stern to stakes driven into the bottom so that the men can 
operate upon a spot until it is thoroughly worked over, when they move 
to a new location. In this manner they can go over the beds system- 
atically. 
The oysters are culled and packed in boxes, each of which holds 200, 
or put into sacks holding 36 pounds each. The filled boxes and sacks 
are loaded on the large cargo scow to await the arrival of the transport. 
Six small sloops (the Boss, Challenge , Leader , Bandy , Elsie , and Pet)* 
are employed in carrying the oysters to San Francisco, where they are 
distributed to the trade in the shell or opened and put into tin cans 
that are packed in ice and shipped to towns in the interior or along the 
coast. A sloop will carry 150 boxes. Two cargoes, or 300 boxes, and 
60 sacks, is the daily average taken to the city throughout the year. 
The market price of oysters in the shell ranges from $1.50 to $2 
per hundred. Packed in tin they sell as follows : Cans holding two 
dozen oysters each, $4 per dozen cans. Cans holding three dozen each, 
$6 per dozen cans. Cans holding four dozen each, $7 per dozen cans. 
Trade . — The annual output of the oyster beds in San Francisco Bay 
amounts to 117,000 bushels (equal to 109,500 boxes) of large Atlantic 
oysters, with a value, at first hand, of $465,375 ; and 13,000 bushels 
(equal to 21,900 sacks) of native oysters* worth $43,800. This makes a 
total of 130,000 bushels with an aggregate value of $509,175. A limited 
quantity of fresh oysters in tins is brought from the East, the cans 
being packed in ice. The amount so disposed of is not important as 
compared with the product of the local beds, and exercises only a small 
influence on the market. 
THE CANNING INDUSTRY. 
When cognizance is taken of the vast resources which the city pos- 
sesses in the way of fresh-fish supply; of the large extent of territory 
which is more or less dependent on it for fresh, preserved, and manu- 
factured fishery products ; of the many countries having no important 
fisheries that are in commercial relations with the western metropolis? 
it appears somewhat strange that fish-canning, which is of so much 
* Three of these are only sailboats, too small to be documented at the custom-house. 
The Boss is 11.40 tons ; the Challenge 17.31 tons ; the Leader 10.86 tons ; Pet and Dandy 
4 tons each, and Elsie about 2 tons. Tbe total value is $3,800. The first three have 
crews of two men each ; the other boats are managed by one man on each. 
