THE OYSTER. II 



over the meadows and hillsides of nearly one-third of 

 New York, and nearly all of the great agricultural 

 states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The 

 most valuable part of the soil of this great tract of 

 farming land, more than forty million acres in area, 

 ultimately finds its way to the bay, in whose quiet 

 waters it makes a long halt on its journey to the ocean, 

 and it is deposited, all over the bay, in the form of fine, 

 light, black sediment, known as oyster-mud. 



This is just as valuable to man, and just as fit to 

 nourish plants, as the mud which settles every year on 

 the wheat fields and rice fields of Egypt. It is a 

 natural fertilizer of inestimable importance, and it is so 

 rich in organic matter that it putrefies in a few hours 

 when exposed to the sun. In the shallow waters of 

 the bay, under the influence of the warm sunlight, it 

 produces a most luxuriant vegetation ; but with few 

 exceptions, the plants which grow upon it are micro- 

 scopic and invisible, and their very existence is un- 

 known to all except a few naturalists. They are not 

 confined like land plants to the surface of the soil, and 

 while they are found in great abundance on the surface 

 of the mud, they are not restricted to it, for their food is 

 diffused in solution through the whole body of water, 

 and the mud itself is so light that it is in a state of 

 semi-suspension, and the little plants have ample room 

 among its particles. 



On land, the plant-producing area is a surface, but 

 the total plant-producing acreage of the bay is many 

 times greater than the superficial area of its bottom. 



