[Illustration:  Lobster cars used in the wholesale trade at Portland]

Mr. J. R. Burns, of Friendship, has invented and patented a new style of car.  The inside is divided into a series of compartments by horizontal and vertical partitions of slats, wire netting, or any material which will permit the free circulation of the water.  Each compartment has a chute extending down into it from the top, by means of which the lobsters can be put in and their food given them.  There are also conveniently arranged openings, with doors, through which the lobsters may be removed when desired.  These cars usually average about 35 feet in length, 18 feet in width, and 6 feet in depth, and have a capacity for about 5,000 lobsters each.  They are in use at Rockland, Friendship, Tremont, and Jonesport.  They prevent the lobsters from huddling together and thus killing each other by their own weight.

METHODS OF SHIPPING, WHOLESALE TRADE, ETC.

As lobsters can not be shipped or preserved in a frozen state they must be shipped either alive or boiled.  About nine-tenths of the lobsters caught in Maine waters are shipped in the live state.  The principal shipping centers are Portland, Rockland, and Eastport, which have good railroad and steamship facilities with points outside of the State.  Those shipped from the latter point are mainly from the British Provinces, the fishermen near Eastport bringing them in in their own boats.  A number also come in from the Provinces on the regular steamship lines.  The other places get their supply from the smacks and also from the fishermen in their vicinity, who run in their own catch.  Portland is very favorably situated in this regard, as Casco Bay is a noted fishing center for lobsters.

As soon as a smack arrives it is moored directly alongside one of the cars.  The lobsters are then dipped out of the well by means of long-handled scoop nets and thrown on the deck of the vessel.  The doors of the car are then opened, and men on the vessel pick over the lobsters lying on the deck and toss them two by two into the different compartments, those dead and badly mutilated being thrown to one side for the time being.  All vigorous lobsters above a certain size are placed in compartments of the car by themselves, while the weak and small are put in separate compartments.  The dead lobsters and those which have had their shells broken or have been so injured that they are very sure to die are either thrown overboard or on the dump.  A lobster which has lost one or even both claws is not thrown away, as such an injury would have very little effect on its health.