274 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



As to the question of State boundaries, commissions were appointed by New 

 York and Connecticut — that from Connecticut being led by Hon. Luzon B. Morris, the 

 present governor of the State. The lines having been agreed upon by these State 

 commissions, the agreement was ratified by the geueral assembly of each State, and 

 afterwards by the Congress of the United States. 



Many other questions arose in connection with this industry which required leg- 

 islative action, and several questions of importance were settled in the Supreme Court. 



Let us suppose that we have acquired a good title to a thousand acres of ground 

 suitable for the cultivation of oysters and over which the water is not too salt or too 

 fresh, too shallow or too deep. The first step is to buoy it out so that its boundaries 

 may be distinctly marked, and that we may avoid planting the grounds of others. 

 In the grant or designation its area and position is designated by distances from 

 certain fixed points, such as light-houses, steeples, prominent rocks, etc. The buoys 

 marking the limits of the ground are usually located in the first place by means of 

 the sextant, angles for which have been previously taken from the map on which the 

 grounds are marked. After the buoys have been once set by sextant, if carried away 

 by storms or ice, they are usually replaced by cross ranges, using any prominent 

 objects upon the shore or adjacent islands, such as steeples, prominent houses and 

 rocks, light-houses and beacons. It is usual to take several different ranges, so that 

 if the objects are destroyed in any of them, the others can be successfully used. 



After the ground is buoyed we would place 30,000 bushels of adult oysters on it 

 to furnish the eggs and milt to stock this thousand acres with oysters. A single 

 female oyster produces several millions of eggs yearly, which, during the warmest 

 weather, are expelled into the water, where they float hither and thither in the tides 

 and currents. Doubtless but a small proportion are ever fertilized. Vast quantities 

 fail to come in contact with the fertilizing element which also floats and swims in the 

 water. Millions are devoured by aniinalculae, and still more are destroyed by sudden 

 falls of temperature in the surface of the water, caused by cold rains, at this critical 

 period of the existence of the oyster. 



The embryology of the oyster is an interesting study. In 1882, Lieut. Francis 

 Winslow, U. S. N., well known for his able and exhaustive studies of the oyster under 

 the direction of the U. S. Government, was with me for several weeks, during which 

 time many millions of oysters per day were propagated under artificial conditions, 

 and the impregnation, segmentation, and other interesting changes which they experi- 

 ence, were observed under the microscope. Many millions of oysters which had 

 developed nearly to the stage of attaching, were deposited in Long Island Sound. 



Sometimes infusoria would generate in the jars of water in which the oysters 

 were kept, and would kill the oysters by millions. 



The little oysters float about for several days, many of them on or near the sur- 

 face of the water; after this roving existence, during which they are subject to many 

 changes, the survivors reach what is called the "attaching stage," when they are 

 ready to adhere to some hard, clean substance and commence a more settled existence. 



The shells commence to form and the specific gravity of the shells assists in car- 

 rying them to the bottom. The greater proportion of the embryo oysters fall upon 

 mud or fine sand and are destroyed. It is for this reason that we furnish hard, 

 clean material to which they may attach themselves. After haviug planted our adult 

 oysters to serve as parents for the new crop, our next step is to plant upon the same 



