290 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



the best method of transporting opened oysters to distant points. This 

 committee has visited Washington five times, and its mission is as yet 

 unfinished. The New York State Association is acting in harmony with 

 the State Board of Health, cheerfully furnishing them with boats and men 

 to pursue their investigations, and stands ready to do so as long as it is 

 requisite or necessary. The New York city dealers are conducting business 

 under permits issued by the Board of Health of the city of New York, granted 

 only after the most rigid inspection, and are lending every assistance in their 

 power to the health authorities to bring about the desired object of assuring 

 the people of the absolute purity of the oyster supply of New York 

 city. 



' The opening houses of the up-to-date shippers of shucked or opened 

 oysters are models of cleanliness and good order. Carelessness in handling 

 or packing is a thing of the past and oysters are now packed as carefully 

 as a physician's prescription is compounded. 



' The methods of shipping are undergoing a crucial test to determine 

 the purest and most wholesome system of transporting opened oysters. 

 The experiments conducted by the Department at Washington will in a 

 large measure determine this question, as the shipping business has grown 

 to such an extent that laws in some states relating to packages in which 

 oysters are shipped work incalculable injury to the shippers when the 

 framers of these local ordinances are in many instances grossly ignorant 

 of the causes of the alleged conditions which they attempt by pernicious 

 legislation to remedy. A uniform system of carriers, approved by the 

 Department of Health, having the same necessary safeguards but not 

 necessarily a patent carrier or of the same style of manufacture, would 

 perhaps go a long way toward preventing the shipper's consignment from 

 being ruthlessly confiscated and consigned to the gutter, because some 

 provincial constable decided it was " Agin the law to ship 'em in them 

 there tubs,' as has happened and will continue to happen unless some legal 

 protection is vouchsafed to the shipper. 



" Gigantic strides in this carrier proposition are under way until we 

 are told it will be possible, by the use of a certain type of transporter, to 

 put oysters in the carrier, or transporter at a temperature of 38 to 42 degrees, 



