464 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



the oysters and brood did come from the Herne Bay 

 grounds. 



In 1877, then, the Company sold 367,450 oysters and 

 brood off the stock beds to Mr. Gann ; in 1878-79, it sold 

 88,672 oysters and brood to Mr. Roots. The sales to Mr. 

 Gann were only objectionable if they exhausted the stock 

 beds ; the sales to Mr. Roots were objectionable because 

 they disposed of the stock with which the stock beds 

 might have been partly replenished. The effect of these 

 sales on the Company can, therefore, only be judged by 

 ascertaining the state of the stock beds at the conclusion 

 of them. 



The Company, from its first formation, has kept a 

 stock account of the oysters on the stock beds ; but the 

 account has been made up in a somewhat singular fashion. 

 The Company has added together the number of the 

 oysters which they have from time to time placed on the 

 stock beds ; they have deducted all the oysters they have 

 taken from the beds, and they have called the difference 

 between these two sums their stock. On this principle, 

 after the sale of oysters and brood to Mr. Gann in 1877, 

 there still remained 639,546 oysters and brood on the stock 

 beds, and after the sales to Mr. Roots in 1878 and 1879, 

 there remained 551,563 oysters. It is only just to Mr. 

 Lovely, who was secretary to the Company from 1874 to 

 1879, and who produced the figures, to say that he did not 

 attach much importance to them. I have myself no doubt 

 that the account is almost if not quite valueless. An 

 account which makes no allowance for the death of oysters 

 from natural causes, from accidental circumstances, or for 

 their destruction by their enemies, is not much more trust- 

 worthy than an estimate of the population would prove 

 which deducted the number of emigrants from the number 



