OYSTER FISHERY LEGISLATION. 985 







market, where they realise a far higher price than if they 

 had been left to mature in their native beds ; they also 

 supply in good breeding seasons a considerable amount of 

 spat, from the others lying there, a portion of which is 

 deposited on the beds themselves, but a far larger quantity 

 is carried by the tide beyond the limits of the private beds 

 to the common grounds beyond, and is there deposited 

 wherever there is anything to \yhich the spat can attach 

 itself. 



After a favourable season, such as that of 1858-9, the 

 quantity of brood which is found on the Flats, off the 

 estuary of the Thames, is enormous ; in that year alone 

 the Whitstable Company bought 134,878 wash (a measure 

 in use for oysters), at a cost of ^28,71 1, and all the other 

 companies and owners of private beds doubtless made 

 similar investments ; it is confidently believed by those 

 who are interested in this harvest that it is due to the spat 

 which has drifted from the oysters lying on the private 

 beds along the coast. 



In this view, therefore, it seems that the best and 

 safest policy to pursue for increasing the supply of oysters 

 is to encourage the formation of private beds, where the 

 brood taken from the open beds may be carefully tended, 

 where comparatively little loss will occur from the numer- 

 ous enemies which attack them on their exposed native 

 beds, and from whence the spat may be carried to fertilise 

 the open grounds. Two difficulties have hitherto prevented 

 advance in this direction. It has not been in the power of 

 the Crown, since Magna Charta, to give exclusive rights of 

 fishing or dredging below low-water mark ; all the existing 

 private fisheries below that line must owe their origin actu- 

 ally or presumably to grants made anterior to that event ; 

 and secondly, there has been too little security to the 



