Morning journal and courier., 1886-08-07

Drancnes and adhered to them IN great guam |
titles until they were ready for harvesting |
for transplanting or marketing. An epidemic |
of scarlet fever and diphtheria pre-
vailed later at Gr0ton, and the board of |
health of the town of Groton ordered the |
totol destruction of these oyster beds as a
nuisance that made the sickness, and they
were destroyed. The owners of the beds
went into the courts for compensation claim
ing that the beds could in no way be detri-
mental to public health, the trees were in
water 10 to 20 feet deep at low tide, and
that the oyters in them were never out of
the water. The court decided that "neither
the brush nor oysters: nor both combined,
were the origin or producing cause OF the
disease"
NEW HAVEN OYSTER GROWERS.
A number of establishments were visited
to day and everybody seemed anxious to give
the desired information and furnish facili-
ties for examining their premises in detail.
Mr.. Henry G. Rowe's establishneut;pr obably
the most complete of its kind in the. world,
was highly commended. Captain A. ]. Hoyt
of the firm of Hoyt Brothers company said
they had, been fighting stars for seven years,
expanding about 81, 900 per year in the work
They are increasing, but are not bad in the
harbor. On some beds they had cleaned the
stars out; in other beds they had thinned
the stars only to find them as thick as ever
later. The Hoyt dredges on runners were
examined; their hinges also. The big bar
rows or cultivators, with a spread of twelve
feet, were also examined. They are used to
freshen up the bottom of the deep farms 80
that spat will catch. Patent wheelbarrows
for moving oysters in packages were much
admired. The Hoyt grounds are we'll sup
piled with clutch, and they only planted
fifty thousand bushels of shells this season.
OYSTER Point, one of the most active centers
of the trade, was visited Its chief firm is
jeremiah Smith & Sons, which is probably
the second largest concern in this locality.
Mr. VIM. H Smith, of this firm, gave most
interesting statement, impressing the investi-
gators with the idea that the
farmers may prove too much for
them in the deep water of Long Island
Sound. The talk was kept up until late in
the afternoon. Mr.. Smith said: "Our firm
has been established thirty years. We han
die no southern oysters now, though we did
formerly. The difference between our ma
tive oysters and Baltimore oysters is simply
that Baltimore oysters are older when they
get to the customers. The bulk of oysters
are shipped from Baltimore shucked. We
ship shucked oysters all through New Eng
land and to Albany, Troy and other points.
Many of our barrelled oysters go to England.
l go there. We have regular customers
there, and we also ship there commission.
The English put down our oysters
SO as to have them after
it is too late for US to ship to them. They
thus get oysters through the summer. I
have eaten the English oyster right off its
bed and don't like it. The majority of oys-
ters there are planted in Mena Straits, IN
Wales, and at Sligo, Ireland. They plant
where the beds dry they can pick them
mp. We ship about 5000 barrels annually
to England and seldom lose one They ar
rive there in good condition, as [ have seen
for myself Sometimes they get weak and
will 'cluck' when shipped very early or very
late in the season. These extreme
shipments are made too often. There
was no money in the English bust
ness this last season. Those who did
most were worst off. Our firm had
quite trade with Hamburg and [ was there
two years ago. The trade was good until Bis
marck raised the tax on the oyster luxury
to SIS per barrel Hamburg is a fine city,
but l could carry nothing beyond it without
paying this tax. We ship none there ROW.
There is a decided difference between Chesa-
peake and Connecticut seed. We get the
southern seed in the spring and open
them in the fall. Southern oysters have
never been tried AS plants in our deep wa
ters They are all used for shallow water
planting along shore from spring to fall,
and they won't carry through cold weather
here in shoal water. We have two steam
ers, and would have to give up without
steamers, as without them we could
not compete with our neighbors. Men who
take oysters up by contract get the same per
bushel for lifting them by steam as they do
by sail craft. If we had constant work for
our steamers we could take up oysters for
half the cost we could by sail When sail
vessels are idle they are much less expense
than steamers Oyster steamer dredges have
not made it easier for the laboring men. The
number of hands to take up oysters has ma
terially decreased, six men by the new pro-
cess doing the work of twenty-five or thirty
men. Business has increased with a few
and decreased with others. A man put near
Iy SO, 900 into this business recently and
soon lost it. 1t has been luck and chance
with everybody, and especially bad with
those who had not means to go into the bust
ness on the same scale with those who OPP
crate largely. We do more business than we
did five or six years ago. So do the other
houses here on this point. Others also do
larger business. The business all through
this section has largely increased through all
it's troubles, but has not doubled in the last
five years. Mr.. Henry G. Rowe plants
many as all the rest of US put together. We
are the next largest dealers to Rowe. Seed
We're never so cheap as this summer. The
price did not warrant us in selling, SO we
dredged for others. We must have
good price for our oysters. We cannot
put our figures to Baltimore prices.
Some dealers get the Maryland
oysters and mix with natives. The
shucked southern oyster is washed there
and is again washed when it gets here. Is it
to be wondered at that, in addition to its
not being as fresh as our natives, it has less
favor when our customers get its Our ma
tive oysters are quoted here to the trade at
81 to 81. 40 per gallon, and southern oysters
at 30 cents to rs cents per gallon. The taste
for certain favors in oysters is cul-
tivated Each one likes the flavor of his
own locality. When he goes from home he
finds an oyster that does not suit because it
has not the taste he is looking for. We used
to make money by deep-water planting, but
it is uphill work now. At Milford we gave
up trying to raise oysters because of the
stars. But in some places stars never trou-
BILE US. Mud is our greatest trouble. Last
year the oysters died right out without any
apparent cause. They scaled right off"