Fat 1.4 per cent Carbohydrates 3.3 per cent Salts 1.9 per cent The total solids are about equal in amount to those of milk, but a quart of shucked oysters costs from four to five times as much as a quart of milk. Oysters, like milk, are bulky for the amount of nourishment which they contain. The nitrogen present is probably not all in the form of pro- tein ; the carbohydrate is largely the glycogen stored in the liver of the animal. Milk and oysters are the two animal foods which are exceptional in furnishing large amounts 210 FOOD STUDY of carbohydrate, although not in the same form. Eaten raw, oysters are an unusually digestible food ; even cooked, they are still easily digested, although they are less so when fried than when cooked in any other way. Long ago the demand for oysters outran the natural supply and oyster culture became an industry. Italy began their cultivation about a hundred years before the Christian era, and within the last century even those places where oysters were naturally most abundant have been forced to cultivate them. In order to understand what oyster farming means one must know something of the habits of the oyster. An oyster produces an incredible number of eggs, apparently to compensate for the fact that in natural life the percentage of those that will find suitable conditions for development is very small. Oyster farming consists in the preservation of as many of these eggs as possible. The newly-born young is not more than one one-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch long, nearly trans- parent, has no shell, and swims freely. By the time it is large enough to be visible to the naked eye it can no longer move around. To survive, during the swimming period it must not only escape being eaten by adult oysters, fish, and other shellfish, but it must find a suitable place in which to develop. If it sinks on a muddy, soft sandy, or slimy bottom it cannot live. If, however, it attaches itself to clean shells it has a chance to survive. But the oyster has many enemies against which even the hard shell that surrounds it does not afford perfect protection. Certain mollusks drill minute holes through the shell and so get at the oyster's body, starfish may force the shell open and devour the contents, or it may be attacked by certain kinds of fish with jaws powerful enough to crush the shells ; or barnacles, sponges, or mussels may grow so thickly on the shells as to cut off food and oxygen. Oyster OYSTERS 211 culture consists mainly in providing suitable beds of shells for the young oysters and in protecting them from as many of their enemies as possible. Palisades are some- times erected around the beds to keep off the large fish.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

Fat 1.4 per cent Carbohydrates 3.3 per cent Salts 1.9 per cent The total solids are about equal in amount to those of milk, but a quart of shucked oysters costs from four to five times as much as a quart of milk. Oysters, like milk, are bulky for the amount of nourishment which they contain. The nitrogen present is probably not all in the form of protein ; the carbohydrate is largely the glycogen stored in the liver of the animal. Milk and oysters are the two animal foods which are exceptional in furnishing large amounts of carbohydrate, although not in the same form. Eaten raw, oysters are an unusually digestible food ; even cooked, they are still easily digested, although they are less so when fried than when cooked in any other way. Long ago the demand for oysters outran the natural supply and oyster culture became an industry. Italy began their cultivation about a hundred years before the Christian era, and within the last century even those places where oysters were naturally most abundant have been forced to cultivate them. In order to understand what oyster farming means one must know something of the habits of the oyster. An oyster produces an incredible number of eggs, apparently to compensate for the fact that in natural life the percentage of those that will find suitable conditions for development is very small. Oyster farming consists in the preservation of as many of these eggs as possible. The newly-born young is not more than one one-hundred-and-fiftieth of an inch long, nearly transparent, has no shell, and swims freely. By the time it is large enough to be visible to the naked eye it can no longer move around. To survive, during the swimming period it must not only escape being eaten by adult oysters, fish, and other shellfish, but it must find a suitable place in which to develop. If it sinks on a muddy, soft sandy, or slimy bottom it cannot live. If, however, it attaches itself to clean shells it has a chance to survive. But the oyster has many enemies against which even the hard shell that surrounds it does not afford perfect protection. Certain mollusks drill minute holes through the shell and so get at the oyster's body, starfish may force the shell open and devour the contents, or it may be attacked by certain kinds of fish with jaws powerful enough to crush the shells ; or barnacles, sponges, or mussels may grow so thickly on the shells as to cut off food and oxygen. Oyster OYSTERS 211 culture consists mainly in providing suitable beds of shells for the young oysters and in protecting them from as many of their enemies as possible. Palisades are sometimes erected around the beds to keep off the large fish.

Food study