Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-09-04

30, 0o0, 900 oysters lying in these White.
stable beds and some grades of these bring
very high prices. The most costly are the
English natives, which are often worth as
much as B cents apiece, and oysters from
these beds are for sale In London all the
year round. London eats over a billion
oysters every year, and they are seldom
eaten in any other way except raw, and the
cheapest cost 25 cents dozen, while the
dearer grades often run as high as dollar a
dozen. London imports more than 100, 900
barrels of oysters from the United States
every year, and it buys more than 25, ,0OO,O 900
oysters from France annually. The Amer
lean oysters are often laid in these beds for
three months after they are imported and
are then brought into market for sale. They
bring from $40 to S12 thousand, and rank
with the Portuguese oysters, which are also
imported and ted in England before selling
Oysters at Cents Each.
London is perhaps the best oyster market,
az tar as single city is concerned, Of any
place in the world, and the prices of oysters
there vary greatly. Some brands bring S45
q bushel, and not long ago some of the
Whitestable oysters cost cents apiece.
You can now buy very good native oysters
in London for 50 cents dozen, and Ameri-
can replanted oysters sell from $40 and up
ward barrel. Oysters are very high In
Germany and they increase in price every
wear. They were very cheap formerly, but
the best grades are now worth and cents
apiece. Italian oysters are DEAR and Italy,
though it had the first oyster farms known
to history, raises but very few oysters.
AS oyster eaters, however, the Ameri-
cans lead the world. We eat about II, 000,-
mn mn nvsfars evarv voar anouoh IN
give dozen to every man, woman and
child in the whole world, and we are prac-
tically the only people in the world who
cook the oyster. The English know moth
ing of fried oysters or steamed oysters, and
of the 2, 900, 000, 900 consumed on the conti-
nent of Europe it is safe to say that ninety
nine hundredths of them go down the En-
glish, French, Dutch and Italian throats
without chewing. More than 70 per cent of
the oysters of Europe are raised artifciallv,
while with us the majority are carried from
the native beds to the markets. The bulk
of the oyster consumption of the United
States is far off from the oyster beds and
millions of bushels are shipped daily during
the season in cans and tubs to all parts of
the country.
Oysters Famous for Producing Eggs.
IF the enemies of the oyster could. be
killed and every oyster egg that was laid
could become Q full-grown oyster the ocean
would hardly contain them at the end OF a
century or So A single oyster, it is esti-
mated, will lay 1900, 900 eggs, and an En-
glish scientist lately counted million eggs
in the spat from single oyster. He did
tnis BY taking a small portion of this spat
and putting it under microscope and then
estimating the whole spat These oyster
eggs are invisible to the naked eye. They
come from the oyster in a sort of cloud,
and the oysters when born are one one hum
dred and tiftieth of All inch in length. They
are very delicate and are susceptible to
cold, and they move up and down in a larval
state and finally fix themselves to some
body and grow to be minute oysters, look
ing at first like white dots and afterward
growing to one-twentieth of an inch in
diameter, and then very rapidly increasing
until they get to be good-sized oysters. An
cent piece, and healthy oysters ought to
grow about an inch a year until they are
three or four years old, when they are full
grown.
Speaking of the size Of oysters, they are
so small at first that 2, 0OO 900 of them could
be crowded into square inch of space They
are curious creatures. The oyster has a
mouth, but no head. Its mouth is at the
narrowest part of the body. 1t is merely a
hole in the OYSTER and it has no tongue nor
no teeth. The mouth is very close to tie
stomach and it is bordered by four thin
lips, ana it gets its food by fltering the
water which it takes into its mouth through
these. 1t has no ears and no nose, but
scientists say that it can see and that it will
close its she'll if a shadow passes above it