Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-11-28

which we have that are adapted to os-
trearea and ostreculture are not num-
erous or extensive, we have yet some
considerable bays and estuaries where
the bivalves may be planted with sue
cess and the assurance of rapid and
prolific growth. think that the cir
cumstances are as favorable for the
cultivation of oysters at some points on
the Weser and in Jahde Bay as in the
English Mersey, and I am quite sure
that the coast of Essex, not even ex-
cepting Colchester, is not better
place for bedding oysters than an area
of creeks and coves some 200 square
miles in extent, which I carefully no.
ticed inside the mouth of the Ems
The Elbe waters are too muddy, and
the North Sea coast is generally too
sandy and turbulent, but, taking the
whole lineinto account, from Cuxhaven
to The Dollar, and am safe in saying
that our oyster fundum embraces not
less than 450 square miles of first quail
ity bedding grounds and upwards of
700 square miles second quality. 1t
will be seen by appendix W that, as
suming the average of seasons and a
management as thorough, careful, and
economical as that Of our royal forests,
and the Government may reasonably
expect return of 123 per cent. upon
the outlay should this whole area be
planted.
2. Assuming a plant of fifty bushels
to the acre, and a triennial increase of
tenfold, with enough left to keep up
the plantation, and we have Cat gal
lon of oysters shucked to the bushel)
an annual addition, after the third
year, of over 1OO,OOO,OOO gallons to the
food resources of the empire.
3. This, were there no obstacles,
would be great economic triumph.
do not, however, recommend the
planting Of oysters upon any parts OF
our coast, no matter how available
On the contrary, [ strenuously op-
pose it, upon every consideration, and
especially with view to the moral
salubrity of our populations. Having
said thus much, I am of course bound
to give my reasons for not wishing our
hitherto happy German peoples to
make the acquaintance of that fasci-
mating but fatal bivalve. Icall it fas-
cinating not because I have eaten it
myself but because I have seen the
avidity and gusto with which other
people eat it. l call it fatal precisely
for the same reasons.
I believe that it was the learned and
excellent economist, Louis Agassiz Ga
German by afinities, though now long
since settled in and identified with
America who first stated the fact that
fish diet contributed more phosphor-
Gus to the system than any other diet,
and hence was to be recommended for
brain n-Workers, who consume their
PHOSPHORUS more rapidly than other
classes. In this regard oysters are to
be classed among fishes. Indeed, if
my analyses are correct (appendix 2,)
a larger portion of PHOSPHORUS is
eliminated from them by the system
than from any other of the inhabitants
of the sea. But [ have discovered that
indulgence in oysters is by no means a
safe thing. Their least injurious eff
feet is upon the brain-workers, who,
probably by reason of their greater
combustion of phosphorus, seem capa-
BILE of assimilating many oysters with
out evil consequences. But, IN the
case Of all those aOho do more bodily than
mental labor, and IN proportion as the
physical e.cceeds the mental exercise, I
haze Observed distinct and positive
tendency IN the oyster, aohen eaten, to
produce emotional insanity, or that sud-
den, transitory, unheralded, yet terri
BILE phrenesis which so fatally disturbs
the peace of society.
1t was among the fshwomen of Os-
tend that first came to suspect that
a peculiar action of the cerebellum
might possibly be induced by intem-
perate use of this article of diet, and
remembered enough of my classical
and other reading to recall the fact,
which then first acquired significance,
that fsh-wives, the world over, from
the danes of Piraus to the DANES des
Halles at Paris, from Balsora to Bill
lingsgate, from Noygorod to Fulton
Market, New York, have been charac-
teristically described as possessing pc
culiarities similar to those which con-
founded and vexed me while pursuing
my Investigations about the piers and
markets of Ostend. This was pecu-
t..