OYSTER CULTURE IN GERMANY. 659 



order to prepare a surface upon which oysters can thrive ; 

 for to attempt to adapt oysters to a bottom of shifting sand 

 or mud is not natural, nor is it conducive to an industry 

 which is to last for a hundred years. For thousands of 

 years innumerable young oysters have been scattered from 

 the oyster-beds over changing mud and sand-banks, and 

 yet not one has so altered its organization as to become 

 adapted to such a bottom and transmit its new nature to 

 its progeny ; they have all been destroyed. 



. . . . Along the German coast, in the East Sea, 

 the sea-bottom, over many extensive tracts, is firm, and 

 also free from mud. These places possess then, in this 

 respect, one of the most important conditions for the suc- 

 cessful formation of oyster-beds. Yet several attempts to 

 plant oysters in the Baltic have proved entire failures. 

 . . . . The much talked-of attempt at oyster-breeding 

 by Coste gave a new impulse to the question of planting 

 oysters in the Baltic. . . . The water of the Baltic is 

 not salt enough for the propagation of the oyster. East of 

 the island of Riigen the water at the bottom contains only 

 i per cent, of salt, and near the surface still less, since the 

 rivers bring in much fresh water. West of Riigen, south 

 from the Great Belt, to near the coast of Mecklenburg, the 

 water at the bottom contains, indeed, as much as 3 per 

 cent, of salt, but here also the surface-water everywhere 

 contains a less degree. 



The young oysters, as soon as they had left the mother 

 oysters, would then ascend to the surface, and thus come 

 into water which throughout the entire southern portion of 

 the Cattegat contains less than 2 per cent, of salt, while 

 they need water with at least 3 per cent, of salt. This I 

 infer from the fact, that such a degree of saltness is to be 



