The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1894-05-17
THE OYSTER OF COMMERCE,
A Big Business That Is Bigger In Mary
land Than Anywhere Else.


land Than Anywhere Else.
The hero who was the first man to
swallow an oyster would be astounded
if he could read part of recent bulle.
tin of the United States fish commits.
sion and see what an important indus
try he started all by himself This bull.
letin tells about the oyster business in
Maryland, but, as Maryland produces
one-third of the worlds oyster product,
the story Of the industry in that state
contains about all that is necessary to
an understanding of the Importance of
the oyster commerce
OF the $4,000, 900 bushels Of oysters
produced in the world each year nearly
80, 900, 900 bushels are natives of the
United States, and more than II, 900, 900
bushels come from Maryland waters.
The value of Maryland's product is
nearly $6,OOO,O 600, that of the United
States about SIG, 900, 900, and that of the
rest OF the worlds little more than
$l2, 500, 900. 1t will be noted that a
higher valuation per bushel is put upon
foreign than upon United States oys-
ters Thisi because good oysters are
cheap here, while poor oysters are dear
elsewhere When lover of this deli.
cacy calls for oysters in London eat
ing house he is asked if he will have
the best, and when he says that he
will he gets sample of Hol-
lands product The oyster beds
of Holland yield about 10000
bushels year, and they are valued in
this computation at $40, 900, or more
than SO busheL Maryland oysters
are put down at shade over so cents
bushel; but there can be no comparison
between the succulent morsel of Mary
land and the rugged old molluslz of
Holland. The latter, as eaten in
Europe, looks and tastes somewhat
like an ante-bellum copper cent spat-
tered with acid and sprinkled with
pepper; and when the partaker tackles
this so-cuiled delicacy from Holland it
seems to him that the chief difference
between the oyster and the seasoned
cent would be that the cent might kill
him and the oyster might not
True to his purpose of treating the
oyster from purely industrial point
of view, the author of the treatise in
question has not turned aside to give
even casual attention to the fascinat-
ing question as to the identity of the
first man that swallowed an oyster;
but he sets forth facts which suggest
the inquiry whether at least two in
vestigators, working Independently in
the field of gastronomy, did not arrive
at demonstrations of the edibleness of
this mollusk of forbidding aspect.
Pliny mentions an Italian oysterman
of the name of Sergius Orata who culti-
waited beds in Lake Lucrinus about
1000 years ago, and says as much as to
say that the Lucrinuses were the sad
die rocks of that day. The prehistoric
shell mounds of this country show that
the Indians were large consumers of
oysters before any white man came.
Thus we find that the noble American
and the noble Roman were eating oys-
ters, probably simultaneously, at a
period anterior to any known associa-
tion of the white and red races. That
the early white comers to these shores
did not bring with them the art of eat
ing oysters and were slow to learn it
from the Indians seems evident from a
writing of John Smith, published in
1881, in which he says substantially
that the colonists got nothing in the
way of food from the waters of the
Chesapeake. Half century later it
was written of the Kent islanders that
one of their grievous hardships was
having to eat oysters to keep from
starving. A hundred years later began
the oyster war that has ragged up to
this time between Maryland and Vir-
ginia, and it is probable that the out,
break OF hostilities marks the Begin
ming of the Importance of the oyster