BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 373 



182.-OIV APPARATUS FOR COIiL,ECTING OVSTER SPAT. 



Ry JOIIIV A. RYDER. 



[From a letter to Mr. R. M. Bache.] 



The sowiDg of shells upon the firm bottom for the fixation of spat has 

 been the most successful method in the United States, and is now ex- 

 tensively practiced in the vicinity of New Haven. When the bottom is 

 thickly covered with ooze I should counsel the use of brush stuck into 

 the bottom, with the branched tops projecting upward into the water — 

 or palisades of brush might be placed in such places together with gar- 

 lands of oyster shells, with holes punched through them and strung on 

 galvanized wire, and the whole supported on the brush or stakes to 

 keep them from being buried in the mud on the bottom. Mud and 

 sediment is of all the enemies of the oyster the very worst, especially 

 to the young fry and spat, millions of millions of which are annually 

 smothered and killed by it. 



The detachment of the youug oyster or spat from the cultch or col- . 

 lectors, would, I think, hardly be profitable in this couutr}', nor do I think 

 it at all necessary if old oyster shells are used for collectors. The 

 shells with the adherent spat can be readily transported and sown en 

 tire, as they do not interfere with each other at all. In some cases, of 

 course, too many young oysters are attached to one shell. In such cases 

 it would be an advantage if some very cheap and detachable coatiug 

 could be put over the shells, which could be flaked off and broken so as 

 not to de-troy the individual young. As many as one hundred oysters 

 will sometimes stick to one valve of a clam or oyster. Then, of course, 

 many of them will be crowded to death by the growth of others around 

 them. 



The method of sowing shells for the purpose of gettiug "seed" is now 

 profitably carried on at New Haven, spat being worth GO to 80 cents per 

 bushel when only as large as a dime and still adherent to the old shells, 

 which are allowed to go into the measure together with the young. 



It would be worth while for some ingenious American to experiment 

 upon the manufacture of some kind of cheap cultch for catching a set 

 of spat, to be distributed over the bottom in the same way as shells are. 

 The disengagement of the, spat from roofing-slate is readily effected if 

 the slates are first coated with a mixture of lime and sand which has 

 been allowed to set thoroughly before the slates are put out into the 

 water in nests. The "nests" are simply the series of slatf s as supported 

 in a simple wooden frame to keep them off the bottom and out of the 

 mud. In this case the coating of mortar, with the adherent spat, can 

 easily be removed without injury to the latter. 



Wood's Holl, Mass., September 21, 1883. 



