--The capital invested in the oyster trade in
Philadelphia amounts to $500,000, yielding returns about a million and a half of dollars annually.
Over 1,200 vessels are engaged in the trade, each making about two trips a month to Maurace River Cove and back.
Owing to disputes with
Maryland, however, some of the boats never return, and the captain and crew are lucky if they escape imprisonment — both the Marylanders and Virginians claiming a monopoly of the business along their own shores.
In
Baltimore, the annual returns are estimated at four millions of dollars.
The trade in these two cities is principally to the west, to which the introduction of the canning system has given a new impetus; experience having proved that the bivalves are best when put up in cans for shipment.