OYSTER CULTURE IN GERMANY. 651 



whether some portions are more suitable for the growth of 

 oysters than others ; and whether the saltness, temperature, 

 and movement of the water, the amount of food which it 

 contains, and the nature of the ground composing the 

 oyster-banks, differ in any respect from these same features 

 as observed in other places over the bottom. 



The saltness of the upper layers of the waters of the 

 open North Sea is from 3*47 to 3*50 per cent. The water 

 of the sea-flats is slightly less salt, being only from 3 to 

 to 3*3 per cent. Here upon our sea-flats, and in other 

 European coast-seas, where the water is less salt, the 

 oysters acquire a much finer flavour than upon the ground 

 of the open North Sea, () where they live in water 35 

 meters or more in depth, with a percentage of salt of 

 about 3 '5. 



That coast-water is, then, the most desirable for 

 oyster-culture which contains about 3 per cent, of salt ; 

 and since not only over our oyster-beds, but over our 

 entire sea-flats, the water possesses this degree of saltness, 

 neither a lack nor an excess of salt can hinder the exten- 

 sion of the beds over the whole area. Even less can the 



(b) Many oysters are taken north of Germany and Holland, east 

 of England, and in the channel between England and France. The 

 German fishermen of Blankenese and Finkenwarder, near Hamburg, 

 who fish with great dredge-nets for flounders, turbots, and soles, out 

 from the mouth of the Elbe, often dredge oysters along with their fish. 

 . . . . Fishermen from Holland and Germany dredge for oysters 

 here (the North Sea), especially during the months of August, Sep- 

 tember, and October, and often catch, at a single drag of the dredge, 

 as many as 1000 oysters. Sometimes great bunches of oysters, grow- 

 ing attached to one another, are gathered into the net 



(S. Metzger's Beitrage zu dem Jahresbericht d. Commiss. zur Unt. d. 

 deutschen Meere, 1873, p. 171, u. 1875, p. 252.) 



