Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/184

172 such exceptions, the usual method of eating them raw is to be preferred" (page 116).

Americans, I believe, are the only people who eat the so-called soft-shell crabs; that is, crabs at the time of having cast the skin. It is not at all probable that, at such a time, the animal is wholesome food. And so with oysters, during the spawning-season, it is wiser to abstain, for the reason that one is not sure that the oysters we are eating then are not in a spawning state. In its normal condition the oyster is excellent food; and, if we assign it its rank among the shell-fish, it will be, without dispute, the queen of the bivalves.



—Says Figuier, Virginia has 2,000,000 acres of oyster-beds. In many places they grow so thickly that they make immense mounds in the water, the lower oysters being killed by those above. Even mouths of the sea have been closed by them, says Dr. Smith. Certainly in this particular the wealth of Virginia and Maryland is immense. In former times all the suitable waters of New York and New Jersey abounded in native oysters. There are those yet living who remember the custom of the farmers to go with their wagons to the shore at or near Keyport, New Jersey, to gather "natural" oysters. There is a curious old map in existence which will, we predict, become famous as an authority in the appeals of State diplomacy. It is dedicated to Governor Moore,