372 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



were deposited. The winter following being very favour- 

 able for its development, and the next summer being 

 genial, its growth was rapid, so that it was of marketable 

 size during the latter part of the summer of 1882. From 

 July to October in that year as many as two hundred sail 

 of boats, each having from three to four men, were engaged 

 dredging up the baby oysters and selling them to pro- 

 prietors of layings. Here was over-dredging with a 

 vengeance. There was certainly enough to make the 

 advocates of stringent legislation to prevent denudation of 

 beds weep and tear their hair in despair. But, fortunately, 

 at that time they happened to be asleep, and no one cared 

 to awaken them, for fear of the incalculable mischief that 

 might probably have been done through their misrepre- 

 sentations. It has been estimated that from the grounds 

 at the mouth of the river Blackwater and along the coast 

 below the Colne during the above period in 1882 from 

 ten to twelve million young oysters were collected and 

 deposited in private layings, there to receive the protection 

 .and care necessary for their proper development into a 

 mature nature. 



"The growth in the summer of 1882 was sufficient to 

 place the young brood safely beyond the risk of the 

 rigours of an ordinary winter, so that in the following 

 summer more important work was obtained on these 

 common grounds, and many millions more of young brood 

 were dredged up. It is this spat which is now affecting 

 the market. Ordinarily, it takes from four to five years to 

 bring an oyster to marketable size ; but the fine summers 

 and mild winters we have experienced lately have induced 

 a growth on oysters equal to five ordinary years, so that 

 the greater bulk of the spat of 1881 will be fit for market 

 next season. Last summer also gave a very heavy fall of 



