PREFACE. 



appeared in The Standard, under the heading of " Oyster 

 Cultivation," and which I quote without abridgment. It 

 is as follows : 



" A letter appeared in one of your late impressions, on 

 the subject of laying down oysters to fatten, and the writer 

 asked whv were not the foreshores made more use of ? 



j 



The reason is, I believe, that few people know how to 

 begin, or what to do. There are hundreds of miles of 

 shore that might be made use of, and that would yield a 

 profit exceeding in value the richest crop the land could 

 produce. Will your correspondent, " Native," throw some 

 light on the subject ? I have been anxiously looking for 

 information, but can find no book or person to give it me. 

 Any person living on the Estuaries or creeks might have 

 his Oyster or Mussel Pare, as so many do abroad." 



The italics are mine, and, I am led to hope that the 

 words emphasized corroborate my humble endeavours to 

 meet and supply the demand. And what though this is 

 but only one seeker of the needful volume, it is and must 

 be self evident that there are surely many more. With 

 regard to the remark of the above correspondent relative 

 to any person having his own Oyster or Mussel Pare, I 

 think the idea quite practical, but (for reasons explained 

 hereafter) rather Utopian in consummation that is, in the 

 United Kingdom. Nevertheless, though not exactly living 

 " on an Estuary," I am sufficiently near one, where oysters 



j ' j j 



have been and are still in abundance, to sympathise with 

 him. 



Considerable prominence has been given to the 

 scientific division of these bivalves, the greater amount of 

 individual character presented by these requiring that the 

 habits of each species should be fully dwelt upon. 



