OYSTER CULTURE IN AMERICA. 765 



size of a quarter of a dollar. As many as a hundred young 

 oysters have been counted growing on a medium-sized 

 oyster shell. 



"The beds are carefully tended, and no pains are spared 

 to kill all the enemies of the oysters found among them. 

 By continual vigilance, the private beds are kept compara- 

 tively free from them. The larger proprietors of deep- 

 water beds use steamers for this work, as also in doing 

 their work of planting, raking over and dredging, and they 

 use larger dredges than the sail vessels can, as they are 

 also worked by steam, at a great saving of labour and 

 expense. When the oysters have grown on these beds to 

 a merchantable size, they are sometimes sold directly from 

 the beds, but more frequently they are transplanted into 

 brackish or fresh waters, where they are permitted to 

 remain for a short period, to freshen and fatten for market. 



" The foregoing table affords the ground for the assump- 

 tion that by the time of the opening of spring work, in 

 1883, 45,000 acres of ground will have been deeded to 

 applicants by the Commissioners. These, with the 45,000 

 acres deeded by the towns prior to May, 1881, will show 

 an aggregate of 90,000 acres held by cultivators under 

 State jurisdiction. Of this vast area a large portion has 

 been cleared up and shelled. One firm laid down 250,000 

 bushels of shells. Several large growers have laid down as 

 many as 200,000 bushels each. A still larger number have 

 scattered a hundred thousand, fifty thousand, and twenty 

 thousand each. There are about 30 steamers engaged in 

 the business, besides a very large number of sailing vessels. 



. . . . It does not admit of a doubt that the busi- 

 ness of oyster growing, as carried on in the waters of the 

 Sound, is exceedingly profitable." 



