748 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



. . . . The early settlers of New England con- 

 tinually refer to the abundance of oysters, at points where 

 not a single oyster can now be found. In 1634 William 

 Wood, in a work on New England, speaks of a great oyster 

 bank in the Charles river, near Boston, and another in the 

 Mystic river, each of such size as to obstruct navigation. 

 The oysters were the long, slender " coon " oysters, which 

 are still to be found in our own waters on undisturbed 

 natural beds. Of their size and form he says : " They be 

 great ones, in form of a shoe-home ; some be a foot long. 

 These breed on certain banks that are bare every spring 

 tide. This fish, without shell, is so big that it must admit 

 of a division before you can well get it into your mouth." 

 The oyster beds in these two rivers are spoken of by many 

 of the early writers, but they are now gone so completely 

 that there is not even a tradition to mark the place where, 

 in 1634, according to Wood, " the oyster banks do barre 

 out the bigger ships." 



In 1637, Thomas Morton, writing of the Plymouth 

 Colony, says : " There are great stores of oysters in the 

 entrances of all rivers ; they are not round as those of 

 England, but excellent, fat, and all good. I have seen an 

 oyster bank a mile in length." 



In all of these cases the exhaustion of the 

 beds has been brought about almost or entirely without the 

 use of dredges, although in a few cases dredges may have 

 been used to a slight extent. 



Enough instances have been given to show that the 

 prohibition of dredging will not save any bed which can 

 be reached with tongs, and as the dredge is a much more 

 scientific, effective, and economical apparatus than the rude 

 tongs which it has superseded, there does not seem to be 

 any reason why its use should be prohibited. 



