370 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



for stock for re-planting has diminished from thirty to 

 forty per cent, below current prices at this time last year. 

 This deduction is not owing to any legislative interference, 

 so much advocated by alarmists, who thought the oyster 

 was doomed to extinction, but rather through the vast 

 recuperative powers possessed by this extraordinary shell- 

 fish. 



"To go back to the years 1857, '5^ an( ^ *59> when suc- 

 cessively each year witnessed a heavy fall of oyster spat, 

 will enable us to better comprehend the rise and decline 

 of the almost fabulous price obtained for the British 

 ' native.' The enormous quantities of young oysters 

 which fell in the estuary of the Thames during the above 

 years created a stock of such vast proportions, that it 

 alone continued to supply the market for many following 

 years. 



"In the Exhibition year of 1862 these oysters were 

 coming to marketable size, and the demand in London 

 alone was so enormous that during the season it was a 

 common occurrence to witness from twelve to fourteen 

 oyster boats lying at Billingsgate delivering their cargoes. 



" The wholesale price for best natives at that time was 

 two guineas per bushel of twenty-two gallons, or there- 

 abouts, and which would contain sixteen hundred oysters, 

 being at the rate of about two shillings and sixpence per 

 hundred (the price of a dozen now), so that retailers could 

 and did in those palmy days retail best natives at sixpence 

 and eightpence per dozen. 



" Then came a failure of spat ; Nature, who had been so 

 prolific during the afore-mentioned years, suspended her 

 gifts, and oyster-culturists had many years of absolute 

 famine. But the taste which had been acquired, and the 

 facilities of carriage consequent on the opening up of rail- 



