The Penn's Grove record., 1882-07-08
Current Won ders.
0yster-Raising in Michigan.

Half way from the great Saginaw
salt wells and Macinaw City we passed
through the upper part of Roscommon
County. The country is too wild and
unsettled to have a county seat, and
| the two stations In it are simply two
great lumber camps. The population
of the country is made up of hard
working lumbermen and three or four
| rich sawmill owners. Six miles from
the station, after riding through a pine
wilderness, ] came to Seth Powell's
house-perhaps the only nice hous
within ten miles.
az came over," ] said to MI. Powell,
"to see if it is true that you are raising
oysters here in Michigan"
"Then you've heard about it, have
you? Well, l guess you've struck the
truth this time. I have an oyster bed
in No-Mouth Lake, and they seem to
be doing well. pn take one of the
boys, If you say so, and Wen drag out
some oysters and show your
No-Mouth Lake, l should say, was
100 rods long and sixty rods wide. 1t
is deep at IN end-I suppose sixty
~feet-while at the other it is shallow,
with a gravel and sand bottom. One
popularity about the lake is that it
has no outlet. Two brooks run into it;
but the water either soaks into the
sand or ~evaporates. Its depth never
changes. The whole country of Ros-
common is situated on q divide. From
the east side the waters run west into
Lake Michigan from the south side
they run southerly, toward Saginaw
Bay, and from the north side they run
toward Grand Traverse, The county
is on the summit. Nj. Powell and
the men rowed out about twenty feet
from the shore, at the mouth of one of
the brooks, in water about five feet
deep, and dragged up some oysters.
They were as good-lc oking oysters as 1
had ever seen in Oyster Bay or along
the Shrewsbury river. They were fat
and healthful. Noticing the water
was salt, | was filed with wonder.
"How came the water salt? I asked.
sit is just as it is at the mouth of
Shrewsbury river"
"Well, oysters won't live in fresh
water, will they? asked Mr. Powells
smiling. "They say the ocean gets its
salt from the Goldfish; but this lake
did not take its salt from the oysters"
"where did it come from?I asked.
"Well, I'll tell you the history of
Lay oyster raising in the center of
Michigan. / used to live at South
Oyster Bay, on Long Island. We
always used to plant the oysters at
the mouths of the fresh water s'r.ams,
where they ran into the bay. An
oyster wants hslf fresh and half salt
water. Now, / found 1 had a lake
with no outlet. That il, if there is an
outlet, it is through the sandy bottom.
Now, salt won't run through sand. I
knew this because we had a well at
South Oyster Bay in the sand twelve
feet from the salt water, but it was
always fresh. So, 1 said, if / put salt
into this lake ii will stay there. / can
make 1t just like Oyster Bay and keep
it so. My cars, taking lumber to
Saginaw, had to come back empty.
| Salt costs nothing but the pumping in
Saginaw 50 / shipped back fifty car
loads of salt and put 1t into Monmouth
Lake. Then I sent to Smith Robson,
at South Oyster Bay, and had him
ship me ten barrels Of small oysters,
little fellows no larger than marbles,
and some of them the size of peas. /
put them in the lake. at the mouth of
the two fresh water brooks, They
have grown right along. Now Pm
putting in some other saltwater fish
like CLAIMS and bluefish, and they'll
grow, too. If ! keep my lake just as
salty as Oyster Bay, l know that any
fish living in Oyster Bay will live
here.n
On arriving at the house, Mr.. Powell
gave us an oyster breaktast-raw
oysters as good as Blue Points, broiled
oysters on skewers, and fried oysters
all from his lake in the center OF