106 THE OYSTER. 



themselves, as it was easy and natural to do, they sup- 

 posed they were the originators ; but if any such credit 

 attaches anywhere, I believe it belongs to the City Island 

 men. It was soon discovered that uniform success 

 was not to be hoped for, and the steady, magnificent 

 crops reaped by the earliest planters were rarely 

 emulated. Many planters, therefore, distrusted the 

 whole scheme, and returned to their simple transplant- 

 ing of natural-bed seed ; but others, with more con- 

 sistency, set at work to improve their chances by 

 making more and more favorable the opportunities for 

 an oyster's egg successfully to attach itself, during its 

 brief natatory life, to the stool prepared for it, and 

 afterward to live to an age when it was strong enough 

 to hold its own against the weather. This involved 

 a closer study of the general natural history of the 

 oyster. 



" The first thing found out was that the floating 

 spawn would not attach itself to or ' set ' upon any- 

 thing which had 'not a clean surface ; smoothness did 

 not hinder glass bottles were frequently coated out- 

 side and in with young shells but the surface of the 

 object must not be slimy. It was discovered, too, 

 that the half-sedimentary, half-vegetable deposit of the 

 water, coating any submerged object with a slippery 

 film, was formed with marvelous speed. Thus shells 

 laid down a very few days before the spawning-time 

 of the oysters sometimes become so slimy as to catch 

 little or no spawn, no matter how much of it is floating 

 in the water above them. This taught the oystermen 



