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COMMERCIAL CANNING OF FOODS. 71 
spices, jellies, etc.; (4) cooked with vegetables, etc.; and (5) preserved by some other 
process, but placed in cans for convenience in marketing. 
The first class includes salmon, mackerel, herring, menhaden, cod, halibut, smelt, 
oysters, clams, lobsters, crabs, shrimp, green turtle, etc.; sardines almost exclusively 
make up the second class. 
The third class includes various forms of herring prepared as ‘‘brook trout,’’ ‘‘ocean 
trout,’’ etc., mackerel, eels, sturgeon, oysters, lobsters, crabs, etc. 
The fourth class includes fish chowder, clam chowder, codfish balls, green turtle 
stew, terrapin stew, and deviled crabs. 
The fifth class is made up of smoked herring, halibut, haddock, carp, pickerel, lake 
trout, salmon, eels, sturgeon, etc., and brine salted niackerel, cod, and caviar. 
CRABS (CALLINECTES HASTA). 
Canned crab meat in this country was the result of experiments made by James 
McMenamin, of Norfolk, Va. He began at Norfolk in 1878, but moved to Hampton 
in 1879, and that has been the chief point of supply up to the present time. The 
season for catching crabs is from April to October. 
The live crabs are placed in large crates, well washed, and then run into a steam 
box, where they are cooked for 25 minutes. After cooling they are ‘“‘stripped’”— 
that is, the shell, viscera, and smaller claws are removed. The meat is then picked 
out of the bodies and large claws by hand, or it may be removed by centrifugal force 
or by compressed air. The latter methods, which are of recent origin, are effective 
-and save much labor. In the centrifugal method the shell and claw are cut across 
to expose the tissue and a quantity so prepared is placed in a centrifugal drum almost 
the same as that used for drying in a laundry. The drum is made to spin at a high 
speed and all the meat is extracted. The compressed-air method consists of an air 
compressor and a storage tank, with pipes leading to a nozzle. The shell is held in. 
_ front of the nozzle, the air is turned on, and the meat blown out. Either method is 
faster, better, and cleaner than the hand picking. 
The meat is filled into cans and processed. The No. 1 cans generally used are first 
heated for a half hour in boiling water, vented, and then processed for one hour at 
240° F. 
Crab meat is not so easy to keep as some other kinds, the tendency being to blacken 
more or less in the cans. 
OysTERS (OSTREA VIRGINIANA). 
The oyster is a marine bivalve of the genus Ostrea, the species used in this country 
being Ostrea virginiana. It is found along the coast, chiefly in the shallow waters at 
the mouths of rivers and in bays. Chesapeake Bay has long been noted for the abun- 
dance of its oysters. They are found naturally all along the Atlantic coast as far 
north as Massachusetts, and at one time were abundant in Long Island Sound. Active 
dredging depleted the beds and now the supply is maintained only by cultivation 
and the restriction of dredging operations. Some oysters are canned on the coast of 
Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, but they are no longer canned north of Maryland. 
The oyster occurs in the Gulf on the west coast of Florida and all along the shore — 
to Texas. There is a large business in canning oysters in Mississippi and Louisiana. 
A few oysters are found on the Pacific coast, but not in sufficient quantity to warrant 
canning. The abundance of oysters in Chesapeake Bay made canning operations 
most profitable there, and the output acquired a reputation which still gives it some 
preference in the market. Prior to 1900 probably 95 per cent of the canned oysters 
were put up in Baltimore or in the immediate vicinity. The southern or Gulf oyster, 
however, has been proved to be equally good for canning purposes and the industry 
has rapidly assumed large proportions in those localities. 
The oyster grows naturally on the hard reefs in from 15 to 180 feet of water, depend- 
ing upon the temperature. In the Guli-they grow in shallower water. They will 
also grow in the bayous and flats by transplanting and furnishing shells or hard objects 
