OYSTER FISHERY LEGISLATION. 1013 



8. As spat is always deposited in an over-crowded 

 state, if some of the young brood are injured by removal, 

 those that remain are benefited by the increased space given 

 them. 



9. At Boston the corporation obtained an order from 

 the Board of Trade empowering them to close the beds 

 for three years. Before the cloture took place, the boats 

 had been able to get as many as 1000 oysters a day. When 

 the beds were re-opened, a boat could with difficulty get 

 fifty in a day's dredging, and the grounds were found to be 

 ruined by the accumulated rubbish. 



10. During the five years which followed the great 

 spatting season of 1858, there were more "Natives' 

 dredged off the grounds than were ever known before, 

 although during these five years there was a general failure 

 of spat. Therefore the supply of oysters has nothing to 

 do with the failure of spatting, provided that a few are left 

 to breed. 



11. In 1 857 there was a large fall of spat on the Native 

 grounds, and a great many boats dredged every da}-, 

 weather permitting; yet in 1858 double the quantity of 

 spat fell. At Swansea fifteen miles of ground has been 

 shut off for a nursery, except for three months of the year, 

 under a regulating order of the Board of Trade ; but oysters 

 have decreased there by more than a third. 



The foregoing evidence might be amplified on both 

 sides, but we have said enough to show that there are 

 difficulties in deciding the question satisfactorily to all 

 parties ; as in most other debateable points, there is a good 

 deal of truth in the views of both disputants. The essence 

 of the matter appears to us to lie in the fact that the same 

 system of cultivation and treatment cannot be applied to 

 all oyster beds. There are many beds that certainly require 



