32 



MARINE AND FISHERIES 



1-2 EDWARD VII., A. 1902 



A local exporter however dispenses with the ice upon the principle that clams will 

 soon die in fresh water, consequently, fresh water ice can not be good for them. 



The price at which these can be sold varies somewhat according to the quality and 

 size of the clams, the district from which obtained, the place where they are offered for 

 sale, the weather, and a host of conditions. According to the New York Fishing 

 Gazette for May 5, 1900, the price per barrel ranged from $3.50 to $6.00; per basket, 

 $1.00 to $2.00 j per 1,000, $5.00 to $6.00. Thirty years ago, according to Verrill, the 

 prices in Connecticut stood at 95 cents, $1.25 and $2.00 per bushel, wholesale. These 

 retailed in the market at 50 cents to 75 cents per peck, the smaller sized ones being 

 cheapest. The Guilford clams were assorted and sold by the fishermen on the spot. 

 The larger ones brought $3.00 per 100, and sold at New Haven at 60 cents per dozen. 

 Smaller sizes brought 48 and 36 cents per dozen. During unusually low tides in winter 

 a few extraordinarily large ones weighing 1 to 1^ pounds each, and measuring 6 to 8 

 inches in length, could be obtained. These sold for $1.25 a dozen. 



On the Pacific Coast occur several large species of clam. One, Glycimeris generosa, 

 Gould, called the Geoduck, ranging from Puget Sound to San Diego, California, frequently 

 weighs from 5 to 7 pounds, and specimens have been reported weighing 16 pounds. 

 These bury themselves 2J to 3 feet deep, and to get one a man has to remove a barrel 

 of mud. They are not very plentiful. One man states that at San Diego he did not 

 find a dozen during several years, but that at Olympia three men could secure a dozen 

 at one low tide. An ordinary specimen furnishes enough good, delicious flesh for four 

 or five persons to eat at one meal. It is believed by those who have had an opportun- 

 ity of studying them that they could be successfully transplanted to the Atlantic Coast. 



Clams are eaten raw like oysters, or they are baked or steamed and served in the 

 shell ; or they may be taken from the shell, the more indigestible parts like the siphons 

 being clipped off, and the rest fried with crumbled bread, seasoning, &c. They are 

 used for soup, or from them is extracted a broth serving as a drink, or they may be 

 pickled, salted, or made into chowders. At Oceanville and McKinley, in the State of 

 Maine, were set in operation, in 1899, canning factories for clams. In October, at the 

 latter place, 150 bushels a day were put up in chowder, or dry, or as broth, &c. 



From Ganong's ' Economic Mollusca, of Acadia,' I quote the following paragraph : 

 ' In the vicinity of St. Croix, " Clam Bakes," are an institution of venerable antiquity. 

 The Indians probably had them, and congenial spirits from the border towns still delight 

 to return at times to the ways of their clam loving predecessors. On some favoured spot 

 on the shores of that splendid river they assemble by appointment, a great fire is built 

 and by it many stones are heated and made very hot. The embers are then raked aside 

 and upon the stones is placed a layer of wet sea weed, on which a layer of clams is laid. 

 Then comes another layer of sea-weed and another of clams, and so on, the top of the 

 whole being a cushion of sea-weed of extra thickness. Over the whole mass is perhaps a 

 piece of canvas thrown, and in such an oven are the clams slowly steamed to the proper 

 degree of deliciousness. A constant concomitant and the most pleasing feature of these 

 banquets is the invariable good nature and good fellowship which prevails.' 



There is sometimes developed in the gills and palps and occasionally in other parts, 

 as the mantle and abdomen of clams and oysters, a bluish-green coloration. This has 

 been very frequently looked upon as due to the deposition of a copper salt in the tissues 

 so affected ; some people have thought they could even recognize a coppery taste, and 

 many believed the animals to be unfit or unsafe for food. This question has been 

 studied by a number of biologists and chemists, and it appears that there is no well 

 founded proof that the animals thus coloured are dangerous — that green oysters may be 

 safely eaten is shown by the fact that they are often more highly valued in Paris and 

 London because of their supposed better flavour. The presence of copper in the green 

 par^js of these mollusks was formerly denied, and it was found that the 'greening' was 

 due to the absorption of a bluish-green colouring matter, allied to chlorophyll, from the 

 protoplasm of certain Diatoms or Desmids. When ordinary uncoloured oysters are fed 

 on Navicula ostrearia (var. fusiformis), they become greened, and on the contrary, when 

 green oysters are isolated and fed on a different diet they lose their green coloration in 

 a few days. At certain times and places this species of diatom may occur so abundantly 



