OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 347 



also ten acres laying out in parallel beds, with puddled 

 clay and chalk-lined walls, trench and reservoir, as on the 

 old He de Re site, and a feeding reservoir of five acres. 

 In addition, low walls have been commenced over a large 

 area of shoals between two points of the coast, communi- 

 cating channels are being cut for boat service between the 

 shoals and " rythes " deepened, and 800 other and adjoin- 

 ing acres remain for any further extension of the present 

 range of pares which may be found requisite. 



Our present purpose is to deal more with what has 

 been done, however, than with what may be done here. 

 The i8-acre pare and the adjoining one of seven acres 

 were both stocked with oysters during the spring of the 

 present year, the conditions in both cases being as nearly 

 as possible alike ; the oysters themselves, it is necessary to 

 observe, being taken indiscriminately from one lot and 

 deposited at the same time in both pares. The water in 

 both ranged from 5ft. to 6ft. in depth, and wattle- work 

 hurdles of hazel sticks and fine twigs were staked down 

 over the oysters, and at a certain height above them. Two 

 thousand tubs of oysters were laid dow r n, On the ist of 

 June the presence of spat was first discovered in the i8-acre 

 pare, and by the 6th the births of the oyster baby hosts 

 were evidently brought to a close for the season. Sixteen 

 thousand hurdles were staked over the old oysters. These 

 hurdles were next taken up, and the oysterlings then 

 removed, with the bark, from the larger sticks by a number 

 of men and lads employed for the purpose, and the smaller 

 twigs cut into short lengths of four or five inches. These 

 strips of bark and cut lengths of twigs, with the oysterlings 

 attached in sizes varying from a pea to that of a large horse- 

 bean, are then sent away to the pares prepared for their 

 reception and growth for market. Taking the lowest 



