The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-09-04
OPENING OF THE OYSTER SEASON
Vast Quantities Arriving at New York- New Haven Contributes.
 TNaw y.pl Sunday Times


 into the North river at break of day and made port at the oyster market
 foot of West Tenth. Charles and Perry streets.
 Each boat was loaded with five hun dred bushels of oysters In the shells.
 The sloops were the regular fleet owned by the market men. and with their advent yesterday. hundreds ot men were put Tt work shucking oys- ters at the oyster boats moorcd along shore.
 The market was the scene of the bus lest activity all day. The shuckers sat in long lines. and. as they sang or whistled merrily. their hands moved with the regularity of clockwork. One movement separated the oyster from It's shell, another placed 1t in pail of clean water. while at the third the empty shells were cast into basket.
 AS the baskets filled with empty shells they were carried up on the deck by helpers and dumped into trucks waiting to receive and cart them away.
 The shucked oysters are not used in this market, the local trade being in oysters in the shell. Retail dealers do their own shucking. The rush Satur- day was 10 supply the heavy orders from the west. which began to come in Friday. in anticipation of the ar rival of a heavy consignment of the bivalves Saturday. The various ex- press companies. each providing spec ial refrigerator cars. took from this city last night over 1.00O,O0O oysters for western points.
 The oysters are shipped in tubs and pails, each holding 1000 counts" as the large oysters are called, and 1,5OO ''culls." as those of the second grade are designated.
 After the oysters are shucked they are put in large colander and washed, after which they are put into the pails I and tubs. A large lump of ice is then put in each tub. a piece of clean canvas spread over the top, and the head is l driven in and nailed. The oysters are then ready for shipment
 The men who do the shucking get $1 per LOGO for their work. A days work work is rarely below 5000, and expert workmen often shuck 1000 oysters day. If the work was steady they I would make splendid wages. but some times, when the supply is short, they are idle from five to seven days at time. The men are all Americans, foreigners having not yet learned the knack of shucking oysters. About 1000 men are employed at the work at the busiest season in the wholesale trade The prospects for this years business in the oyster trade are very good Su- perintendent Barnes of James W. Boyle's establishment, at the foot of Perry street, said Saturday that he ex- pected the best and busiest season for many years.
 '';New 'beds where oysters have not been disturbed for three or four years, have been opened, and, in consequence, the oysters are large, fat and of super lative quality. Most of those being re- ceived now are from Newport, N J., and Princes bay. A few bluepoints and RockaWays are now being re- ceived, and New Havens as we'll, but the regular season of the latter will not be at its best for three or four weeks.
 The oysters now coming to market are from the private beds of the whole sale dealers. They are planters as we'll as dealers, and each year plant hun- dreds of bushels of seed oysters. These lay from two to four years developing before they are large enough for mar ket The beds are then good for work ing for two or three years more, while other plantings are maturing. -
 The method of planting oysters is very simple. The seed oysters are merely sown overheard from a small boat and allowed to sink. They i'm mediately domesticate themselves and begin to grow.
 Seed oysters are generally small bi- valves about the size of an ordinary thumb nails Each female oyster is supposed to propagate millions of ioys- ters in the form of spawn This floats through the water in small globules like gelatine, and soon matches. By some curious law of nature the young oySlei dtldcAco ilSSIl lO some ODJeCC, preferring the white side of a shell or piece of tin. An old shoe or a rubber boot is also favorite abiding place for it.
 Soon the bivalve begins to exude calcinous secretion, and then the shell begins to form. In one year it has grown to the size of a mans thumb nail, and is Known as seed, and is ready for planting in the the regular oys- ter beds. Sometimes an oyster dredger will bring up an old tin can or asrub- Der boot covered with thousands of seed. oysters. This is precious freight l for him, and he caregully secures the seed and plants it where it will do him l the most good in the future.
 There are places, however, where oys- ter seed propagate in large quantities l spontaneously. The Shrewsbury river is one of these places and Delaware | bay another. Fresh oyster shells, like 1 those from which the oysters were talk en Saturday. contain large quantities of spawn. These are often planted in | beds. for the purpose of raising seed. They are Eever put on live beds, how ever, because of the trouble they give the dredgers when raking for oysters, and who want something better than empty shells
 There are more than score of whole sale firms in this city who not only