292 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



with East Providence on its left, and numerous bridges and small shipping to worry its swift tides. 

 The Seekonk has always been a favorite home of the oyster, and year by year the river contributes 

 its quota to the tongers, through a space from the Wicksbury pier to nearly 5 miles above. This 

 is due largely to the fact that the oysters of the Seekouk, like those of the Tauutou River, are 

 vividly green. No better reason can be assigned than in the former case, and, like the others, this 

 seed, when transplanted for a few months, entirely loses its verdant tint. Seekonk oysters, there- 

 fore, never go to market, but are all caught for the seed. This catching begins November 1, 

 according to law, and must close on May 1. These dates are arranged with the purpose to pre- 

 vent successful planting, and so protect the fishery; but the planters buy as long as the weather 

 remains "open" and warm. Very little raking is done in this river in the spring. The men are 

 rivermen, who work at this a few weeks in November and December, and the rest of the year 

 do other water-work. The law forbids taking more than 10 bushels in one day to each boat, but if 

 the seed is plentiful this law is very often violated, since there is no officer to watch. Perhaps it 

 is a direct good effect of these regulations that 1878 and 1879 have witnessed the largest yield of 

 Seekouk seed known in a dozen years. The main buyers are Wilcox, Browne, Wall, and Adams, 

 of India Point; but everybody buys a fe\v bushels who can. The catchers have to take what pay 

 is offered them, but competition sometimes produces a good rare, the usual price being 25 cents a 

 bushel. This being public ground, and everybody having a chance at it (many of the heavy owners 

 send spare boats and crews up this river to rake at- odd times), it is impossible to come at any close 

 estimate of the amount of seed-oysters taken from the Seekouk during the last year. The truth I 

 believe to be somewhere between five and ten thousand bushels. It is a shapely, hardy seed, open- 

 ing well, and is in general demand, some planters putting it at the head of the list for its good 

 qualities. One year on its new bed suffices to remove totally the green tinge, and two years to 

 make it marketable. 



The remainder of the seed-oysters planted iu Narragansett Bay come from the Connecticut 

 shore, East River, Fire Island, and the Great South Bay, Somerset (planted chiefly by those owning 

 privileges in Tauuton River), and from various parts of Buzzard's Bay. I often asked which was 

 best, but could never get evidence of much superiority in any one kind. The success of a planting 

 does not depend on the kind of seed put down so much as it does upon a thousand circumstances 

 of weather, water, and bottom. The seed which would do excellently iu one cove would behave 

 badly in the next, and rice versa, individual preferences being founded upon these varying and 

 unexplained experiences. The seed from the south shore of Long Island used to be cheapest of 

 all, and good; but a Boston demand ran up the price beyond the pockets of Rhode Island planters. 

 In general, it may be said that any seed transplanted to Narragansett Bay develops into a better 

 oyster than it would have conic to be if left in its native waters. * * * On Block Island, many 

 years ago, there was an abundance of small oysters living in the pond that occupies so much of 

 the interior of the island. For some reason, however, they were rarely found in a fit condition for 

 food, but would serve to transplant. The oysterinen at Clinton, Connecticut, and elsewhere, used 

 to buy them, the price being 25 cents a bushel, delivered at their destination. The shells of these 

 Block Island oysters were so delicate, one planter told me, that it was easy to pinch your thumb 

 and finger through them, and often there would be so much air and fresh water held within their 

 half- vacant shells that they would float when thrown overboard in planting, and drift away. All 

 these oysters long ago disappeared, and no cultivation has been tried to replace them. 



