OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 471 



mitted the whole of these facts ; he, indeed, naturally 

 endeavoured to show that the Company had done more 

 towards the cultivation of the ground than the Memorial- 

 ists alleged, and that the system of watching which it pur- 

 sued was more efficient than they allowed. But he did 

 not attempt to pretend that the Company had pursued the 

 course which, under other circumstances, it would have 

 been its duty to have followed. The Company, he said, 

 was impecunious ; its impecuniosity had forced it to sell 

 its oysters and brood. Such sales were not in themselves 

 unreasonable ; they were forced on the Company by its 

 financial necessities. 



Before I proceed to consider the reasons which the 

 Company put forward, why the certificate of the Board of 

 Trade should not issue on these facts, it may be convenient 

 if I add that the almost continuous neglect of the grounds 

 from June, 1879, to May, 1881, is perceptible enough on 

 any careful inspection of them. I am particularly anxious 

 to avoid deducing any conclusion unfair to the Company 

 from my personal inspection of the ground, on the morn- 

 ing of Saturday, the i jth of August, a detail of which I 

 insert in the Appendix. An oyster ground is naturally 

 dirty in the summer ; sea-weed, like land-weed, grows 

 rapidly in hot weather. Weeds collect mud, and the 

 grounds consequently, as the summer advances, become 

 dirtier and dirtier. But making every allowance for this 

 circumstance, I am bound to say that the state of the 

 ground, as I found it on the morning of the i jth of 

 August, was worse than I expected. Many of the oyster 

 shells were covered with ross, many of them and many 

 stones were speckled with the red growth which fishermen 

 call " quats ;" the weed was thick on the ground, and 

 except on an old mussel bed off the Herne Bay Pier, 



