Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1888-07-26
FAIR HAVEN.

The Ravenous star FIsh Agafn-A
Scheme 10 Make Them Pay For Their
own observation-disclosures Lawn
Party
1t certainly begins to look as though the
oyster dealers will soonShave to invent some
new way of getting rid of their old foe the
star fab. The diabolical looking thing has
increased of late to an extent that is really
terrible to the growers and how he Is to be
eradicsted is mystery which no one has
successfully solved. Some of the growers
have lately come to the conclusion that they
have had too much ground under cultivation
of late and that perhaps they have made
serious mistake in planting 80 many shells as
they have done this year. OF course many
of the growers have q laudable ambition to
plant all the shells each season as have been
made during the year and the result of their
ambition in many cases, has been that the
shells have been distributed 80 thicklv on
many beds that the stars have increased ma
terially. A well known dealer in talking
with Courier representative last night
stated that it would be a great
deal better If the dealers would only
plant as many shells as they could
well look after during the year. "You see,
he said, sfwhen a dealer spreads shells all
over all the ground he has, the result is sure
to be that he cannot pretend to carefully
look after all the ground planted. He will
devote his attention to certain beds to the
the neglected beds breed stars with amazing
rapidly. They fairly swarm al there is no
effort made to kill them of, and when they
get big enough and have eaten up all they
have on their native acres they begin to
prowl about in search of food and thus over
run other beds"
ssThe dealers will have tough time this
fall looking after the stars. now you mark
my words" the dealer continued with an air
of conviction. tThey really have no ade-
quate means to combat the fish, and all the
killing of work has to be done by hand prac-
tically; In the first place it costs as much
to catch Etars rs it does to catch
oysters. A dredge is necessary
and the oysters are pulled from the beds
when the fish are picked out by hand and
the oysters thrown back. Thus you will
see it is well nigh impossible to eradicate
all the stars from small piece of ground
even without hauling up the oysters many
times over. The fish are steamed and then
thrown overheard or else they are carted
ashore and left for the farmers to collect for
manure.
SIT is in this connection that the dealers
have chance, to my mind to makethe star
fish pay for their catching. AS fertilizer
they are vastly superior to whitefsh, which
are caught at great expense for such pur-
poses. 1t would be great scheme if some
of the dealers would establish place where
they could dump all the stars they can cap
!ture and have them made into compost. The
farmers would be willing to pay fair p1ice
for the fertilizer, and it could readily be sold
at price trihe higher than whitefah.
have an idea that if the business was we'll
conducted the dealers could make enough to
pay the cost of catching the fish, which is at
present all dead loss to them.
. You may depend upon II, p said the gem
tleman by way of conclusion, ttthat some
thing has got to be done and that right
away"
The ladies of the W. @. 7. U. will hold
their picnic ct DEN Mansfeld's grove, East
Haven river, again this year. Last year
quite q number of ladies attended.
The lawn party given by the Ladies' Aid
society of the Methodist church last evening
opened well and was well patronized.
lied,