OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 373 



spat, and the mild winter we have passed through warrants 

 us in hoping and looking for another supply equal to that 

 of 1881. 



" .... A comparison of prices will enable the reader 

 the better to comprehend the influence of the increased 

 supply of young brood, or the prospects of cheaper oysters. 



" Last season the price of ware for replanting 



on Kentish beds ranged from'^iz to 14. per tub of 1,800 

 to 1,900 oysters ; this season the price for the very best stuff 

 of the same number is from 7 to % per tub. This reduc- 

 tion, looking at the stocks held by the principal owners, 

 should bring next season's market price for best natives 

 down to i2s. or 145. per hundred. Indeed, other causes 

 may work to bring prices even lower, for merchants having 

 large stocks, in the face of the heavy fall of last year, are 

 anxious to realise, and, in the absence of demand from 

 Kentish buyers, are obtaining grounds on the Kentish 

 coast for fattening oysters they cannot otherwise sell. 



" This fall in price, being from a natural cause, con- 

 sequent upon the bountiful supply, will be profitable to 

 the growers, as will be patent to the most unsophisticated 

 when it is stated that the stuff purchased in 1882, at from 

 one shilling to two-and-sixpence per hundred, has every 

 prospect of realising from 125. to 145. for the same number. 

 Nay, independent of the quality of the fish, the value 

 arising only from the size of the shells, this same stuff at 

 present is realising from nine to ten shillings per hundred, 

 or an average of 400 per cent, in little more than two 

 years," 



