Daily tobacco leaf-chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1890-1895, 1892-01-13
PUMPING OYSTERS.
Eh%y Are Made 80 Look Fat, but Are
simply Filled Up with Fresh Water.

Fhey Are Made so Look Fat, but Are
simply Filled Up with Fresh Water.
Not every lover Of the oyster knows that
the size and plumpness which are so high
" priced in thai great American bivalve,
and are so attractive in specimens on the
half shell or in "a stew as to lead the aver
aye man to pay an extra price for extra
size, are not. entirely natural. Yet it is
the usual practice for dealers, instead of
selling the oysters in the condition in
which they are taken from the salt water
beds, to first place them for time-forty-
eight hours, more or less-in fresh or
brackish water in order, as they say, to
"fatten" them, the operation being called
floating" or "laying out" BY this proc
ess the body of the oyster acquires such a
plumpness and rotundity, and its bulk and
weight are Sc increased as to increase its
selling value materially.
The belief is common among oystermen
that this "fattening' is due to an actual
gain of flesh and fat, and that the nutri-
tive value of the mollusk is Increased by
the process. Such, however, is very far
from being the truth. If bladder be
filed with salt water and then put into
fresh water the salt water will gradually
work its way out through the pores of the
bladder, and at the same time the fresher
water will ent + the bladder.
Furthermore, the fresh water will go in
much more rapidly than the salt water
goes out, owing to the fact that the latter
is more dense The result will be that the
amount of wHter in the bladder will be in
creased, and the bladder will swell by TAX
ing up more water than it loses, while It
the same time it loses Il portion of the salt.
The same principle exactly applies to the
oyster,
Roughly speaking, the body of the oyster
may be regarded as a collection of mem
braneous sacs. These sacs are impreg-
mated with the salt of the sea water in
which the animal lives. So long as the
bivalve rematLs in the salt water the solu-
tion of salt within it is in equilibrium with
the water outside But when it is placed
in fresh or brackish water the salt passes
out of the body and a larger amount of
fresh water enters, producing the disten-
sion called 'fattening,"
Oystermen and that the oysters 'fatten"
much more quickly in fresh than in
brackish water, quite naturally. Warmth,
too, is so fay, "able to the process thatit is
sometimes found profitable slightly to
heat the water in which the oysters are
loatcd. Although oysters are generally
noated in the shell, the same effect is very
commonly obtained by adding fresh water
to the oysters after they have been
"shucked." Oysters lose much of their
salty flavor in floating, Of course, and it is
chiefly on that account that the specimens
one eat are apt to be less salt than would
be agreeable to the palate, If the "fat
tened" oysters are left too long on the float
they become lean again.
Experienced dealers say that the time
for allowing salt oysters to "lie out" is
seldom over two or three days, at the end
of which time the maximum plumpness is
obtained At Franklin City, Md, oysters
are 'fattened' on considerable scale, and
one planter there warns fresh water for
the purpose to GO degs. Fahrenheit in win
ter by steHm pipes running beneath the
wooden incIosure which surrounds the
"piumping float"
Good fat oysters generally yield five
quarts of solid meat to the bushel, but
after floating two tides or more in a tide
river they will measure six quarts per
busheI. Finally they are taken from the
shells, if they are to be shipped in that
way, and when the liquor is all strained
Off they are washed in cold fresh water
and packed for market. In warm weather
they are put into the water with ice
Washington Star.