Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1901-07-24
OYSTERS IN THE SUMNER
WHAT THE elvALvEs DO DURING
THEIR VACATION

Shell Cribs for Lit,le Ones-Oystermen Of
Narragansett Bay Kept Busy for Weeks
Fixing Them - Strange Appearance OF
the Oysters When Only Eear oid.
So many Providence river and Mar
ragansett bay oysters as went their
gastric way this past season haven
been eaten before-anyway, for many
years. 1t would be too much trouble
to tell all the reasons for this fact,
but it can be remarked without any
inconvenience that these oysters are
good; they have made reputation,
and that kind OF thing has wide cir
culation, for everybody is its free ad-
vertislng agent.
When April runs out with the last
R for four months, nobody, everybody
knows, eats any oysters. But it will
not do to think that because the sea-
son for stews and half-dozens on the
shell will be over on the 1st of May
that the oysterman will then take a
vacation. II he has left the city on
his little steamer every morning be-
fore Z o'clock during the fall and
winter and dredged all day for oysters
which he brings back in deck heaps
in the evening, he has other things
to do during the summer which are
even harder work.
Already the season is so nearly
ready for its departure that the mar
ket steamer comes up to the city but
once in two days, and every boat In
the company's feet gives all it's possi-
Bile time to improving the oyster beds.
A few years ago oysters grew Wild
like berries. and people went out and
gathered them. neither wondering nor
caring how they came to be. Now it
Is different. 1t takes an oyster four
years to mature, and it is good or bad
pretty much according to the way 1t
Is treated.
It's term of four years begins in
July, when its mother spawns. An
oyster insists upon having something
clean to place her young upon. She
will not drop them on the sandy bot
tom, for that would mean death. So
the oystermen take the great piles OF
oyster shells which have been grow
ing all these R months until they rise
to the tops of the fish houses and
coal sheds on South Water street, and
about the 1st of July, instead OF sell
ing them for road dressing, as they
do, carry them down the river and
shovel them over the beds where the
oysters lie which will begin to spawn
by July 25. Before the Goth, the once
used shells are back in nearly the
same place where they were growing
the year before. And in a few Gays
as many as a 100 baby oysters as
large as a plain dot are using each
shell as a common crib.
When these little shell fish become
nearly a year old. the growers trans
plant them. That is what the M. Dew
ing was doing this last week. The
foreman, Joseph W. Gardiner, who
has lived with oysters since he was
small boy, and yet admits that there
Is much more he is going to know
about their ways before he Is ready
to retire as emeritus, stands at the
wheel in the pilothouse, steers the
steamer over the bed of the one-year-
clds and then directs the dredgers.
The dredgers are made Of heavy
iron bars, with net attached, the
whole resembling a woman's reticule
multiplied about 1000 times. There
is one dredge for the port and one for
the starboard side, and they are run
out ON chains which are pulled in by
steam. The steamer drags the dredge
along. inside between the meshes of
the net. When the weather is kind
and the wheels run smoothly, the men
can take on board 500 bushels in an
hour and five minutes. Eighteen hun
dred bushels is the usual days haul.
One-year-old oysters are strange
looking things. They are as small
as half thumb nail, and, sticking by
the hundred to an old osyster shell,
they make an even more peculiar ap-
pearance. When the men have taken
on load, they pull out the star fish,
which destroy hundreds of oysters
every year. Then ther carry the pile
over to another bed, back and forth.
they shovel the shells overheard. AS
the water is deep, the different old
shells with their kindred barnacles,
separate on the way to the bottom,
where they have plenty Of room to
themselves.
II is by transplanting that the oys-
ter gets it's most marketable shape.
It would be long and fiat If it were
never touched from the time it began
to the time it was culled, but, by hav-
ing it's pasture changed it becomes
round and fiat.
For an.acre $50 bushels are used in
the transplanting. When the oysters
are two years old they are transplant
ed again, this time 500 bushels to the
acre; once more when three years of
age they are taken up and put in an
other bed, and finally, when four years
old, they are placed on the market
grounds to fatten. The market beds
are in shoal water, where the tide
runs strong.
II the. tide is always on the move
and the oyster lies on bar just in
it's way the shell fish will grow by
the hour. Oysters won't do any grow
Ing in the winter; the water is too
cold. About the 1st of May, however,
they start in to add to their size.
When, in October. they stop sending
out their shells, they grow their meat
out to the shell and in month they
fill up the spare room.
Rhode Island oysters, dealers in the
state say, are rated higher than
Chesapeake Bays. When they come
from the best land in the river here
they are supremely delicious, but only
one-third of the grounds are first