49 2 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Each claire is about 100 feet square. The walls for 

 retaining the waters require therefore to be very strong ; 

 they are composed of low but broad banks of earth, five 

 or six feet thick at the base, and about three feet in height. 



These walls are also useful as forming a promenade on 

 which the watchers or workers can walk to and fro, and 

 view the different ponds. The flood gates for the admis- 

 sion of the tides require also to be thoroughly water-tight, 

 and to fit with great precision, as the stock of oysters must 

 always be kept covered with water, but a too frequent flow 

 of the tide over the ponds is not desirable, hence the walls, 

 which serve the double purpose of both keeping in and 

 keeping out. 



A trench or ditch is cut in the inside of each pond, 

 for the better collection of the green slime left at each flow 

 of the tide, and many tidal inundations are necessary before 

 the claire is thoroughly prepared for the reception of its 

 stock. When all these matters of construction and slime- 

 collecting have been attended to, the oysters are then scat- 

 tered over the ground and left to fatten. When placed in 

 these greening claires they are usually from twelve to six- 

 teen months old, and they must remain for a period of two 

 years at least before they can be properly greened, and, if 

 left a year longer, they are all the better ; for I maintain 

 that an oyster should be at least about four years old before 

 it is sent to table. In a privately- printed pamphlet on the 

 French oyster-fisheries, sent to me by Mr. Ashworth, it is 

 stated that oysters deposited in the claires for feeding pos- 

 sess the same powers of reproduction as those kept in the 

 breeding ponds. " Their progeny is deposited in the same 

 profusion, but that progeny not coming in contact with any 

 solid body, it inevitably perishes, unless it can attach itself 

 to the vertical sides of some erection." 



