The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-10-26
OYSTERS MOST VALUABLE SEA
 FOOD GATHERED
Bivalves for World Con- sumption With Exception
 of 1O%o Found in US.

, oysters are, with the single exception of the sea herrings, the most valuable and most important to the human race. They owe that economic pre- eminence to the fact that they have high food value and that they are palatab1e, cheap, widely distributed and easy to cultivate.
 Oysters occur in greater or less abundance on the shores of all tenn perate and tropical seas, but the sup ply in the arms of the North Allan tic ocean exceeds that in all other waters combined. There are at least a hundred different kinds or species of oysters, with wide range in hab- it's, flavor, shape and size. All the oysters on the eastern and southern coasts of the United States belong to one species, which has, however, many local varieties; the native oys- ter of the Pacific states of wholly different species.
 In about thirty-five countries oys- ter farming is a special industry. The annual oyster crop of the world now amounts to more than 40,000,000 bush els, for which the fishermen and plant CTS receive about $25,O00,000. The United States furnishes nearly 90 per cent. of the crop.
 Few animals are more prolific than oysters, but of the millions of micro scopic young that a single full grown oyster produces only very small per- centage survive infancy. The heavy natural mortality among oysters at all times is particularly marked in their early months. The newly born young are for a few hours free swim ming creatures, waited about by tides and currents, and unless they settle down on suitable surface they quick ly perish. After attaining the size that is visible to the naked eye they are not able to change their position. When the temperature, density, tides and currents are favorable the floating young go to the bottom and become attached to the shells of old oysters or to any other hard surfaces that may be present, but all that fall on muddy or soft, sandy bottom or on slimy sur faces soon perish. Modern oyster cul- ture aims primarily to save the free swimming young, and oyster planters therefore provide clean shells, tiles and other hard objects to which the "spat" as the young oysters are called, can attach themselves.
 Oysters have been under culture longer than any other she1lfish. A simple type of cultivation f1ourished in China at very remote period and probably antedated by some centu- ries the beginning of oyster culture in Italy, which was about the year 100 B. l. II. e. ters they came to be cultivated ir all the important maritime countries of Europe. In other parts of the old world and in the western hemisphere the growing of oysters by artificial means has become an important indus try, so that to-day oysters are the most extensively cultivated of all aquatic animals.
 The human animal is not the only one that looks with favor upon the edi- ble qualities of the oyster. At every stage in its career it is attacked by horde of dangerous enemies, some of which are most destructive after the oyster has put on it's stoutest armor.- Before the young oyster attaches it. self it is extensively consumed by adult oysters and various other she'll fish as we'll as by fishes that strain their food from the water. When the oyster attains it's shell new set of she1lfish enemies provided with drills begin their attacks and extract the soft parts through minute holes that they make in the valves.
 The oyster growers of Long Island sound and adjacent waters suffer heavy losses from the inroads of star fishes, which, moving in waves over Ahe bottom, devour every oyster in their path. In a single season they have been known to destroy in one state several hundred thousand bush els of marketable oysters. It seems strange at first that weak creature like the starfish should be able to prey on an animal so strongly fortified as an oyster. The starfish attaches itself to the lips of the oyster shell and ex- erts steady and long sustained suc- ton with each of it's numerous small suckers. After time the powerful adductor muscle of the oyster be- comes fatigued, the valve opens, and the starfish inserts it's stomach and devours the helpless oyster at leisure.
 Other enemies of the grown oyster are fishes with powerful jaws armed with crushing teeth. On the Atlan-' tic coast the most destructive fish is the black drum, a school of which may virtually clean out an oyster bed in one night. On the Pacific coast a species of sting ray is the chief of fender.
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