THE OYSTER. 105 



this deposit survived the winter, and the next spring 

 the youngsters were large enough to be taken and 

 transplanted. It was only a short step in logic, there- 

 fore, to conclude that if objects were thrown thickly 

 into the water on purpose to catch the floating spawn, 

 a large quantity of young oysters might be secured, 

 and saved for transplanting at very slight expense. 

 The next question was What would best serve the 

 purpose? Evidently, nothing could be better than the 

 shells which year by year, accumulated on the shore 

 from the season's opening trade. They were the cus- 

 tomary resting-places of the spawn, and at the same 

 time were cheapest. The City Island oysterman, there- 

 fore, began to save his shells from the lime-kiln and the 

 road-master, and to spread them on the bottom of the 

 bay, hoping to save some of the oyster spawn with 

 which his imagination densely crowded the sea-water. 

 This happened, I am told, more than fifty years ago, and 

 the first man to put the theory into practice, it is re- 

 membered, was the father of the Fordham Brothers, 

 who still pursue the business at City Island. In 1855 

 Captain Henry Bell, of Bell's Island, planted shells 

 among the islands off the mouth of Norwalk River, 

 and a short time after, under the protection of the 

 new law of 1855, recognizing private property in such 

 beds, Mr. Oliver Cook, of Five Mile River ; Mr. Weed, 

 of South Norwalk; Mr. Hawley, of Bridgeport, and 

 others, went into it on an extensive scale. Some of 

 these gentlemen appear never to have heard of any 



previous operations of this sort. Discovering it for 

 9 



