58 



water which keeps the food supply up to a high average all the 

 time. As a natural consequence of the conditions existing in 

 these deeper places they are capable of affording good growing 

 conditions for a greater number of oysters than is the same 

 area of bottom in the shallow bays where the currents are more 

 sluggish an tdhe dessemination of the food organisms less active • 

 and complete. These bottoms in the deeper bayous, on account 

 of the exceptional food supply, could be best utilized by em- 

 ploying them for ''fattening" or "finishing" grounds for oys- 

 ters that had been grown on some less favorable bottom. Ths 

 possible additional handling that such a course might involve, 

 provided that the oysters were worked over twice before being put 

 on the fishing beds, has been shown, in every case where -cultural 

 methods have been followed, to be well worth while and is 

 more than compensated for by the increased value of the product. 



By the adoption of the use of modern methods it would bt; 

 possible to make use of the bottom in some of the larger lake^i 

 where the depth of the water is too great for the bottom to be 

 taken up by the lessees of small areas. In these larger bodies of 

 water there is also a chance that it may be too rough to work 

 from a small boat for days at a time, while this feature would 

 not be troublesome to large boats working drags except in times 

 of severe storms. 



For the lessee of large areas of bottom there is a decided 

 advantage in having his holdings as compact as possible, which 

 can be accomplished in the larger bodies of w^ater only without 

 covering the entire bottom and thus encountering the danger of 

 overstocking the bottom, which feature will be discussed farther 

 on in this report. 



UTILIZATION OF SOFT B0TT03I^. 



A perusal of the statements of the conditions in the bodies 

 of water in this parish suitable for the growth of oysters shows 

 that by far the greater part of the bottom in all of them is com- 

 posed of mud, in most cases, too soft to support seed oysters. 

 When any hard bottom exists it is found to be, with few excep- 

 tions, those areas that have been the locations of oyster reefs. 

 As these hardened areas were, in most of the bodies of water, tha 

 only areas naturally available for the banking of oysters, they 



