Report of the Board of Shell Fish' Commissioners 187 



will demonstrate the existence of bottoms here and there where 

 oysters set regularly, the value of which could not have been 

 predicted, the one necessary condition to the setting of oyster 

 fry, if there is such, never having been discovered. The follow- 

 ing statements, however, regarding the conditions under which 

 to expose shells for securing spat will generally hold good : 



The bottom selected should be somewhat elevated above sur- 

 rounding bottoms and be free from the accumulation of sedi- 

 ment. It should be firm enough naturally or made so artifi- 

 cially to support shells at or above its surface. The water 

 should flow over it at certain stages of the tide with a velocity 

 sufficiently strong to free the exposed shell surfaces of any sedi- 

 ment which, during slack water, may have settled upon them. 

 The proper condition of salinity and food supply must of course 

 co-exist with the conditions mentioned above, but these factors 

 may be disregarded, provided the bottom under consideration is 

 located in an oyster-producing section. Even though the food 

 supply in the water should be low, the lack in quality will be 

 made up by the quantity which, through the rapid flow of the 

 water, is available to the oysters. Good seed-producing bot- 

 toms are seldom found in the upper parts of rivers or in shel- 

 tered coves, but they abound in the Bay; near the mouths of 

 rivers and along shores exposed to the action of high winds. 



Growing Oysters for Market. 



Oysters may be grown for market on the same grounds on 

 which they become attached to cultch as spat, but oysters so 

 grown do not sell for prices as high as those which have been 

 transplanted one or more times. The conditions under which a 

 set of young oysters is first secured are likely to bring about 

 another set of spat the second season, a third during the next 

 and so on, thereby producing badly shaped oysters adhering in 

 bunches or clusters. The individual oysters of a cluster are 

 not only badly shaped, but are more likely to be poor and of 

 slower growth than oysters grown singly because the oysters of 

 a cluster occupy the space that should be occupied by one oyster 



