The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1886-01-29
NURSERIES FOX OYSTERS.
HOW THE SEED MAY Be PROTECT
ED UNTIL FIT TO TRANSPLANT.
The Problem of Oyster Culture Probably
Solved-Sure and Bountiful Crops of
the Tootlaeome Bivalve-Ex- .
planation of Methods.

rection of the United States fish commits
sion by Professors Brooks and Ryder,
now promise valuable practical results.
Professor Ryder. at a recent meeting OF
the Washington Biological society, fer
the first time announced the result of his
studies, which promise to be of the high
est economic value. 10 use his own
words: ave have reached point where
we can safely say the problsm of oyster
culture is solved. We have been sound
ing it for many years, and have now
struck bottom"
For long time one of the chief draw
backs to successful oyster raising has
been the scarcity of seed oysters. The
young oyster, for some time after it Is
hatched swims in free state upon the
surface, and then as soon as its shell is
formed it is dragged by the newly-ac-
Quired weight to the bottom, and there it
dies of suffocation in the mud. This is
is the fate of billions of young each year,
and for long time the necessity of fur
nishing the young oyster some good,
clean surface for attachment has been
felt. The tendency to swim at the sur
face is an adaptation for securing wide
distribution by means of the winds and
currents which sweep the young oysters
against solid bodies that may serve for
attachment; and the greatest danger to
which an oyster is exposed Is that it may
not at the swimming stage find such q
surface. ....
TAKING CARE OF THE aEMBRYos"
Mr.. Ryder's plan is to construct
ditch, serpentine in form, having nets of
galvanized wire placed perpendicularly
about foot apart, and extending from
the surface to the bottom. This will
give the greatest possible amount of at
taching surface in given area. In q
ditch 400 feet long, constructed after their
plan, and having an area equal to pond
forty-feet square, 400 such baskets may
be placed, giving tremendous amount
of available room for the young oyster to
fix themselves. A bushel of "brood
oysters" will deliver 1,000,00O,000 en-
bryos, and of this vast number swept
back and forth by the tide in the narrow
ditch few would be so unfortunate as to
pass through without striking one Of the
wires. In ditch having the area of an
acre 10000 bushels of spat can be raised,
and each oyster will have room enough
togrow to the required size.
The seed which is used for planting in
Maryland and Virginia, as well as in Del
aware and further north. is now pro-
cured from the natural beds of these
waters by dredging and as the demand
for oysters for this purpose is certainly
sone of the elements which have lead to
the depletion of the oyster beds, there ID
q widespread feeling that the expsrta-
tion of seed should be prohibited. BY q
small investment of capital any one on
= tide water could easily raise large guam
Of IL, IL
that which Is now procured froIn tho
natural beds; and if the laws permitted
the sale and transportation of this seed
seed without restriction at the season
when the demand exists. it could be sold
at profit far less than the cost Of dredg
ing.
ADVANTAGES OF THE METHOD.
Northern planters could also raise
seed for themselves by constructing
bitches in the warm water of the sounds
of Virginia and North Carolina, where
the length of the summer season would
permit several collections to be made in
one season. The oysters thus reared be-
come large enough for planting in five or
six weeks, and in this latitude there is
abundance of spat from the middle Of
April to the 1st Of July. 1t can be col
lected until September.
This method, with slight notifications,
can also be used for the direct production
of marketable oysters, especially over
muddy bottoms, and in regions where
public sentiment does not permit private
ownership of the bottom. Artificial
beds may be cut in the salt marshes or
the creeks can be used; then there will
be no question about the right to keep
the oysters from the public. AS
food for the oyster is most abund-
ant at the mouths of muddy creeks,
where the bottom is too soft for oyster
culture by planting or shelling, this
method will have special advantage in
such places; for there will be no danger
of sanding or of smotbering by mud at
the surface, and there is no limit to the
number of oysters which can thus be
grown on given area, for the free cur
rent of water will bring food to all of
them. Experiment shows that, in addi-
tion to all these advantages, the oyster
will be of better shape, with better
shells, AID more marketable, than those
grown at the same place on the bottom.
Finally, this method will do away with
the necessity for title to the bottom, and
will thus enable few enterprising men
to set the example of correct oyster
culture, and, by the education of the COM
munity, to hasten the time when wiser
laws will render our natural advantages
available for the benefit of the people.
The most economical method of con-
structing the necessary arrangements
must, of course, be determined by practi-
cal experiments.-New York Sun.