Year: 1875

The usual method OF studying oyster:


and the oyster trade is to swallow {


dozen raw at a market stand, interview


the Wholesale dealer in regard to the


number he handles and where he get


them, chat for half an hour, perhaps


with the master of an oyster sloop ther


clinch the whole with such information


as may be cleaned from the nearest


encyclopedia. This is the reporter.


method. Much interesting knowledge


is gained thereby; but, as we have


already seen, more is missed. The mos


important feature of the business, the


cultivation of oysters, is invariably
overlooked.


Having seen that, so far from being


unknown in this country, as commonly


reported, oyster breeding is an industry


at once extensive and very important,


let us visit the oyster farmer at home,


and study the methods of his business,


their object, and the effect they have


on the development of our much priced
and most delicious product of Neptune's s
kingdom.


First, to the breeding ground.


To the casual visitor, sailing over an
oyster plantation, it is the blankest of
all cultivated areas. He sees but a
waste of water, with here and there a
protruding pole. and is but vaguely
impressed when assured that as far as
his eye can reach the ground is covered
with crops in various stages of maturity.
Strange farming, under twenty feet of
brine In the middle of broad bay,
perhaps a mile from shore, our tidy
craft is put about, and our skipper says
we are over patch" of twenty acres
devoted to this years spawn. For miles
around the Sound is staked off for oyster
beds, and hundreds, perhaps thousands
of acres, belonging to other oyster
farmers, are in use as breeding grounds.
As we drift across our twenty acre field,
dredge is thrown over, and a moment
after the quivering rope tells that the
dredge is at work on the bottom. We
drift boats length, and the catch is
hauled ina bushel or 80 of empty
shells, half dozen crabs, any quantity
of amber -colored "gingles," and per-
haps two or three oysters.


"Nothing here !" you are tempted to
say but look closer. Every one of
those empty shells, every object that
has not escaped through the meshes of
the net, is covered with rough brown
creatures the size of ones finger nail.
They are oyster spat, that is, young
oysters of this years spawning, now
three months old. They first become
visible to the naked eye when about a
week old. A gingle the size of a nickel
coin carries half dozen a nodule of
coral as large as a walnut bears twenty !;
ON half an oyster shell you count fifty
or sixty, perhaps hundred or more, if
you have patience to distinguish the
little ones. Who can number the thou
sand on square yard, the million on
an acre, every inch of which is sown
with promises of future stews and
fries


As we pass to other grounds, the
dredge is cast on the gravelly she'll
strewn bottom of a swift channel, IL a
quiet cove, in deep water and in shall
low each time the dredge is filled with
rubbish interspersed with old oysters,
clans, scallops, and other denizens of
salt water. Here and there a bright
shell, a pebble, or bit of coal will
show an oyster spat but whole
dredge full of stuff will carry fewer
than a single oyster shell from the
breeding ground. 1t is the old story of
Nature rersus cultivation.


At spawning time last summer, the
waters over the several areas were
equally filled with microscopic oysters,
millions of which we're sent adrift by
each prolific parent. They swarm free
and independent, like other young
people, for awhile but the time soon
came when they had to settle for life.
At this critical stage of their existence,
those on the breeding ground were
plentifully provided with enticing rest
ing places, in the shape of clean shells,
gravel, and the like, and they settled in
myriads. Those which had Nature for
nurse had to take their chances, and on
the uncultivated grounds the chances
were relatively few, Notwithstanding
the season was an uncommonly favor
able one for natural beds. The fur
nishing of clean stools for the young
spat is thus matter of prime lmpor-
tance in oyster culture, and it is of
equal importance that the stools are
provided at the right time. The period
of spawning varies with the position of
the bed, the depth of the water, and
other conditions, from June to August.
The precise time for each bed must be
discovered with the knife" that is to
say, by dissecting the oysters. By
this, which is purely an American
method of breeding, it matters little
how deep the water may be (; shells and
gravel will sink through hundred feet
as certainly as through ten. The shall
low breeding places employed by the
French would not answer at all in our
climate, no more would their costly
and clumsy contrivances for fixing the
spawn. There the securing of few
hundred thousand spat is accounted
great achievement. Here it is the least
of the oyster breeders labors to obtain
boat loads of them. The trouble is to
defend them during the five years of
their development.


Examine one of the spat-laden stools.
1t is obvious that such crowd OF
oysters cannot come to any size in SO
small a space. If left to themselves,
few could survive the struggle for exis
tence, and they would be pinched and
meager. The oyster farmer does not
permit such a waste of seed. Yonder
sloop, which has been beating back and
forth across our breeding ground, is
nearly laden with a Notwithstanding
cargo, in reality wealth of seed that
would be small fortune to foreign
breeder. The business of her crew is,
primarily, to keep watch against Inva-
sion by starfish and other foes of the
young oysters. Their coarse-meshed
dredges bring up quantities of spat-
covered shells which are kept for dis
tribution on other grounds, quite as
many spat as can thrive on the ground
being attached to stools small enough
to slip through the dredges. Next
summer the year-old seed will be sim
ilarly thinned, the clusters broken up,
and the surplus trsnsplanted. The
same process will be repeated the year
after the next year the entire crop will
be lifted, it happening that the oysters
thrive exceedingly well on this particu-