so BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



years of observation before most of them will have received completely 

 satisfactory replies; but it none the less behooves the j^ractical men who 

 are interested in tlie oyster industry to experiment and observe till they 

 are in a measure answered, because until then we shall have made no 

 very solid progress in the pond-culture of the oyster. 



Whether policing and districting the Chesapeake will be of as much 

 use as intelligent efforts at culture even in a very i)rimitive way, I gravely 

 doubt. The average oysterman is very conservative; the great major- 

 ity could not even bo induced to sow shells, often being quite ignorant 

 that such a means was ever resorted to for the purpose of giving the 

 beds a chance to spread and cover more territory ; the thought of the 

 possibility of the fixation of some of the millions of embryos which are 

 emitted from the oysters on the old beds, and wafted hither and thither 

 by the tides, never seems to enter their minds. They plant oysters, it 

 is true, but this means simi)ly, among the Southern oystermen at least, 

 that poor or undersized oysters are brought from some other place and 

 laid down for a season or two to grow, when they are again taken up, 

 sorted, and marketed ; those which have not grown large enough, to- 

 gether with such spat as in some cases may have been produced on the 

 beds, are thrown back and replanted, and not usually in a very thorough 

 or systematic way. There is to-day very little effort being put forth 

 by the planters, so-called, of Maryland and Virginia to really cultivate 

 the oyster. The old system of simply shipping the poorly grown or 

 two-yearlings from some other old bed to a new one, is what is called 

 planting and cultivation. The time has come when these '"planters" will 

 have to awaken from their indifference to this subject, and take hold of 

 the industry in an intelligent and scientific manner. 



It may be urged that pond culture will be expensive, and involve 

 large outlays for digging and preparing the ponds, but it should also be 

 borne in mind that ponds once prepared can, with slight annual repairs, 

 be kept in condition for the business for many years, besides which the 

 work is condensed and becomes more accessible and easily managed. 

 The oysters are planted thickly, about 100 per square yard, in the claires 

 or ponds of Europe. At this rate one acre of cultivated oyster bottom, 

 worked on the pond or basin system, ought to accommodate 480,000 

 single oysters, or 3,200 bushels, reckoning 150 oysters to the bushel. 

 This is a yield which ought to satisfy the most extravagant expecta- 

 tions. Though this is not actually the produce per acre, which is found 

 over the limited areas known as natural beds or " oyster rocks," where 

 an average of 270 single oysters will sometimes be found to the single 

 square yard, giving a total of 1,290,000 single oysters to the acre, 

 aggregating the almost fabulous yiald of 8,740 bushels, a result which 

 must of course be regarded as the growth of at least three years, as I 

 have known "oyster rocks" to be formed within that time, through the 

 agency of man, where piles of old oyster shells had been thrown over- 

 board, and left heaped up on the bottom, to which a large set of spat 

 had caught and grown so as to produce the above result. 



