The evening times., 1899-03-18
OH
WINTER-KILLED OYSTERS.
Old Dealer PrJnOunces the SuifOca-
ton Story "a Myth.

Old Dealer Pr0nounces the suifoca-
tiOn Story Myth.
Oxford, Md, March 18.-A prominent
oyster dealer. yh2 has bssa longer;
scfaper. e. and a dTedgsf and Is thoroughly
well acquainted with every oyster ground
in the Choptank River and adjacent wa
ters, and whose intelligent observation and
practical experience runs through thirty
years and more, says.
Newspaper correspondents are making
misleading statements about the oysters
in the deep water of the Choptank and
Miles rivers, or any other Chesapeake riv-
er, being winter killed What the
fishermen are saying about oys-
ters bein asphyxiated, or suffocat-
ed, because ice covers the surface
of the water, is myth, If not supersti-
ton Those that have perished have been
killed by the cold, and have not died for
want of air. When freeze, such as we
have had this winter, begins on the water,
many oysters on the fats and shallow bars
are caught in the ice and are frozen to
death. When the ice breaks up and comes
ashore in pieces many of these. dead oys-
ters caught in the ice while making, come
with it, This is all the harm the surface
ice formation does to the oysters, and it is
comparatively Insignificant.
oysters, when out of the water and ex
posed TO the air, are as susceptible to frost
as sweet potato or tomato foliage is. They
will freeze at a higher temperature than
meats, eggs and most vegetables. The past
winter oysters froze in dry cellars, even
when covered with bagging, when unpro-
tected potatoes, turnips and parsnips did
not. II the surface ice is foot thick oys-
ters on the bottom in six foot water are
safe all winter If the freeze lasts so long.
But oysters get poor during a freeze. The
food supply is scant, because the currents
that transport ii are sluggish, or still, and
the upland supply. brought down by the
| fresh water rivers, is cut off. Possibly. II
| the freeze continued a great while, the
| oysters might starve to death. II the oyS-
! termen and fishermen who make these re-
| ports have found a considerable number OF
| dead oysters in deep water ii is more
! plausible that they died from starvation
| than from suffcation. Who says that oys-
ters perished from lack of air last winter at
I depths of twenty and thirty feet is telling
a ghost story.
These same people will gravely tell you
| that many thousands of bushels of oysters
were smothered last winter by the ice
sinking and covering them up. Did the
| ice sink il would certainly kill the oysters.
! These people do actually believe that field
ice sinks. notwithstanding it cannot sink,
! because its specific gravity is so much
less than that OF water. They cannot ac-
count for its rapid disappearance in any
other way. end therefore. it sinks its
| time has come. So, counting the oysters
that sunocated for want of air during the
freeze and those smOthered by sinking ice
| when the freeze broke, ii would seem that
the oyster crop is as badly winter killed
as the peach crop. In all this stuff there is
laugh, and not an alarm. The fact is,
these oystermen and fishermen reporters
had not examined, oyster grounds in water
20 or 80 feet deep, or any other depth when
| they reported their observations. Just be-
fore the ice break began. while the freeze
was on its last legs, as 1t were, they would
gather together about a sunny bank or
canoe landing and comfort their pessimis-
tic souls and add, another chapter to the
book of the 'Oysternen's Woes by reach
ing the mournfu conclusion that most OF
the oysters had been suffocated by the ice
while aloat and others smOthered by ice
when il sunk. That is all there is in It,.