The morning call., 1893-02-12
We Have Them, but They
Will Not FertiliZe.
STRAY NOTES ON BIVALVES
They Have Figured in Prose and
Poetry, and Have Always Been an
+" Article de Luxe" but Why 2
w ritten for THE MORNING CALL.

Oysters are luxuries in the sense that
salmon is not a luxury Leaving out the
river of Macedon and the river of Mon
mouth. and the "Sammons In BOTH" of
which Shakespeare spoke, there are ninety
people that like oysters for ten that want
salmon.
Are there any available means of creating
Pacific Coast oyster industry apart from
importatiunp
1t is far easier to naturalize a Chinese
than to naturaliZe an oyster. Both of them
are planted here planted on California SOIL
Both of them grow up here, and the suppo-
siti0n is that in time some OF the survivors
Of the fttest will claim to he natives"
A native" California oyster ought to be
a very good thing, but alas. there be few
Of them. About the only native California
oysters / know of are scattered about on
the Mission Bay and San Bruno fats, and
even they have long since been smothere ed
with mud. the bape of oysters in all places
and all chimes.
Oysters are like hogs-they love turbid
wafer, but are no friends to mud.
There is but one single reason why the
bay of San Francisco should not be full of
oysters, and that ones name is Mud. To
the oyster mud is death.
Is there California oyster? Is there a
Pacific Coast oyster? Why. certainly; but
not in a commercial sense.
The Pacific Coast oyster ranges, we will
say, from the Gulf of Fonseca, in Central
America, to Puget Sound and yet pretty
nearly al the oysters in the San Francisco
market that are not transplanted Eastern
oysters, are eaten by way of apology. Why
is this?
Because. In the first place, no systematic
effort has been made 10 develop the simon
pure native oyster; secondly, because there
is NJ abiding place for an oyster on the Pa
cifc coast at points handy 10 railroad trans-
pOrtati0n.
Conceive now the bay OF San Francisco,
with apparently illimtabie D ssibiitles oil
oyster cultivation. And yet all the oysters
put down in the beds are either taken up for
immediate use, or al most planted for two
or three years 10 meet an investment OF cap
ial.
There is not the slightest reason why The
inland shores OF San Francisco Bay on the
western side, and the outer shores below
Point San Pedro should not produce all the
oysters San Francisco wants.
| have seen something of oyster culture
from the fasl.fading Roman towers OF Re-
culvers and Whitstable Bay, near the mouth
of the Thames, to the bay of Bai8 de-
seribed by Old Pliny. And | want To say
right here that oyster-culture pays better
than any other culture, except a man has
gold mine and some one else 10 wOrk it.
AT Arcacbon, in France. they have made
a thorough and successful business OF II.
Sneh business by no means implies trans
planting the oysters and guarding the BIZ
valves against their numerous enemies.
The worst enemy Of the oyster, however,
is man. For whatever be the idiosyDcrasies
OF individuals there is no man or woman
that will refuse oysters raw, on the half
SHE'LL or cooked somehow. And for every
oyster taken and eaten three are sacrificed
and wasted.
In the days of PlIny and his ostreaslum
on the bay of BaiR may be seen an eX-
emplar of the fact that tile old Romans knew
how to live, as Horace and Mec8nas knew
how 10 live.
There are some moderns who are of the
same way OF thinking, and who, perhaps,
scarcely think that the oyster is older than
the world we live in. 1t must be a hard
blow TO these-in the sense OF opportunities
lOst-to reflect that the oyster Is as old as
the Jurassic age, and that in the cliffs, far
newer than these, from San Diego TO
Shasta there are fossil oysters. untasted
and uneaten, that would stock all the
oyster markets in San Francisco for
hundred years. About the most character
istic fossil OF the Las, or what others call
the Jurassic age, is the GTypE9a incurva,
or curved oyster. that shows plainly an era
OF crowded oysters on narrow beds, and,
worse luck, there was no one TO eat them.
For whenever you see curved oyster you
may know that oyster was raised on a
crowded bed. The curve was an adapta-
ton to circumst stances.
The more crowded the bed the more
curved the oyster. That is the way with
humanity. especially in cheap lodging
house.
The native English oyster. highly priced
and dear in price, is raised not many miles
halo oil oil R.atn in ~
Receivers now dropping inIo the seal. where
10 the old days Thames oysters were served
up as a luxury to Roman "high-muck-a-
mucks" and prncelings. English natives"
from Whitstable are worth to cents
apiece in. London, and they are not a whit
larger or more succuient than California
oysters to-day.
"What are California oysters?" don't
believe there are any worth mentioning and
still surviving. Tee tiny bivalves SOLD in
the market as such nearly all come from
Shoalwater Bay, near the mouth Of the Co.
In local waters to be taken up within two
weeks for home consumption.
As for the Eastern oysters there are thou
sands OF tales, but one is sufficient Pretty
nearly all of these oysters come from the
Atlantic Coast, between Lewes, Del, and
Cape Cod. The old Blue Point oyster has
been defunct ana dredged out, even in
work OF dredging to supply the Western
market is going on. About the best oysters
in the western hemisphere now are the
Lynn Haven Bays, and they are worth
nearly as much in the East as the others
are in the West, leaving transportation out
of the question. A dozen Lynn Haven
Bays ought TO be worth a dollar here.
don't know. to put the question more
fairly, than TO say that | have not tasted a
Blue point oyster since 1888, and don't be-
iieve there are any IN the Western market.
There were too few of them once-there are
none Of them now.
About the biggest oyster that comes to
marketare the Mobiles and Rappahannocks.
And both these pass the limits where flavor
goes with size.
have measured a Rappahannock oyster
shell with my foot, length for length q
don't go small size and the Rappahannock
got the best of it. That was way down in
imagine greater difference on the same
idea than between the Rappahannock and
the little California oyster that is not a
California oyster at all.
The European oyster Is so different, too.
/ remember In my boyhood's days being on
the island OF Jersey. There came along
every night about the time when little boys
were supposed TO be tucked in and fast
asleep hard citizen who called out: :
oysters, three penny; fine ai-ai-stayS,"
Chat was how he pronounced it, | used 10
creep downstairs, with risk OF beating, to
taste one of these oysters after the stewing
process. The lady cook (rest her sowD must
be old now, for i am not young. but, oh,
gayly. how l used to creep back to bed
after a taste OF the broth of those great
big oysters. the shells as large.as the palm
Of mans hand and as round as dollar.
About three Of them went TO a meal, and
when | grew older and got whacked for a
false quantity in Virgil and for mistrans-
lating Pliny i used to think how just one Of
those oysters would make amends.
| don't know positively about Califo rnia
and Pacific Coast oysters. and | have not
the least idea Of "vexing" the question
with ostrea-culturalists backed by State aid
and with facile Legislature in the future.
But why not California oysters2 True.
we have none; the real California beds are
pretty certainly confined to few points.
To repeat, the little fellows are not Cali
fornia oysters. The come primarily from
hrnn do fro,