The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-22
HAPPENING OF OYSTERS.
A Discovery Which is Expected to
 Revolutionize the Industry,

That oysters may be red ana ldltel
 ed artifically for market is a dis
 covery newly made by the United
 States fish commission, which is on the
 point of announcing the results ot
 experiments in this line that have been
 in progress for the last two years The
 matter is of special importance to
 oyster planters on Long Island Sound
 and in the Chesapeake bay region, Who
 have been suffering seriously from a
 tendency to thinness in their product
 Such lack of fatness has meant that
 their oysters were unmarketable ire
 uuently when the season of demand
 arrived and thus they have lost much
 money. Henoeforth, thanks to the
 discovery here described, they will De
 able to fatten their bivalves cheaply
 and quickly in unlimited quantities at
 any time of the year.
 For the purpose of it's experiments
 the fish commission prepared a large
 pond at Lynn Haven bay, which is be-
 tween Norfolk and Chesapeake bay.
 That is a locality famous for it's oys-
 ters, but for some years past the plant
 CTS in that neighborhood have been
 unable to fatten their crop, which on
 that account has been unstable, much
 hardship resulting. It was believed
 that the cause back of the mischief was
 the exhaustion of the available food, so
 many oysters having been planted year after year that the provender on which they depend has been to great eX-
 tent used up. This is what is giving rise to the trouble in Long Island Sound
 undoubtedly the case being like that of a farm which has been impoverished by over-cropping.
 The problem tackled by the fish commission was to ascertain whether ' oysters could be fattened artiflcially, and for this purpose they established a pond some acres in extent, which had marsh around one end of 1t. Into the enclosure the water of which was i kept at the proper degree of saltness
 they put considerable quantities of the | bivalves, and on the land at the marshy l end of the pond they sowed commercial fertilizers, phosphates and carbonates, the idea being that the chemicals should find their way gradually into the pond with the help of small streams which fed the pond through the marsh.
 | Now this may seem to have been rather odd sort of expedient but 1t IS easily explained. Oysters live entirely upon microscopic plants called "di- atoms'' which are usually to be found in any water. fresh or salt. There IS nothing that furnishes better food for datoms than just such chemicals as those above mentioned-a fact which was ascertained by Professor Moore of the United States fish commission, who kept a few millions of diatoms in glass jars in Washington, and found that they multiplied at an astonishing rate when supplied with small quantities of carbonates and phosphates.
 The pond experiment was at first only a partial success. Some of the oysters in the inclosure WaXed fat tthey were all very thin when they were put in) while others remained as lean as Jobs turkey. It did not take the ex- perts long to find out that this was be- cause there was no circulation of water in the pond Some of the bivavles got plenty of diatoms to eat while others got very few. Obviously it was necessa ry to modify the arrangement.
 This was accomplished by building a sort of canal with boards along the bottom of the pond-just long trough into which some hundreds of bushels of thin oysters were dumped, distrib uting them along Then a small wind mill was set up and so operated in con nection with a propeller at one end of the canal as to force q current of water continually through the trough. Eureka IT. r>F bI.t,, Within less than fortnight all of the previously hungry oysters were as fat as butter and ready for market.
 Only one difficulty remained-the windmill could not be relied upon, be- cause the wind did not always blow; hence the current of water was not flowing all the time. II was easy enough to overcome the trouble by substituting for the windmill a small gasoline engine, which went ahead night and day. This was done only few weeks ago, but results have been most satisfactory, large patches of oys- ters being fattened in only eight days.
 The experts purposely established unfavorabe conditions for their exper- iment. For one thing, they cut off all supply of water and therefore of diatoms from outside the inclosure. It would have been easy to help matters by connecting the pond with the waters | of the bay close by, but this was not | desired. For an oyster-planter, how 1 ever. it would be far more advan- l tageous to build the little canal in an | open cove, or some such place, so as to take advantage of the natural sup l ply of diatoms. Then by sowing fer | tilizers along the nearby shore, and | permitting them to leach into the wa ter, he could fatten any quantity of | oysters expeditiously. A windmill will | do the work pretty well but gasoline engine costs little, and the expense of | fattenng per bushel would be next to nothing
 The importance of this new discovery to oyster planters generally is enor- nous As yet the greatest trouble has been encountered in Chesapeake bay, but farmers of the bivalves on Long Island Sound have suffered also, and in order to fatten their oysters are com monly obliged to take them from deep water and plant them off the mouths of | rivers before sending them to market. | The river currents bring diatoms, of 1 but the resulting plumpness is caused largely by bloating which the