The Rise And Decline Of The Olympia Oyster 



oystermen adopted smaller types of labor saving equip- 

 ment. But at best, the work went very slowly. I recall one 

 instance, the leveling of what is known as "Dike One" of 

 The Olympia Oyster Company, in Oyster Bay. It is, I 

 believe, the largest oyster dike in existence, about fifteen 

 acres. They had a flotilla of oyster equipment and work- 

 ed summer and winter. Yet it took between three and 

 four years to do the leveling. (See picture). 



ONE GROWER'S EXPERIENCE. 



As I sit here I am looking out over my own eighteen 

 acres of dike land. It has five dike levels, terraces follow- 

 ing the curved beach and the natural contour of the tide 

 flat. The dikes are from two feet to four feet in depth. 

 Most of these dikes have been built three or four times. 

 In the very early days with untreated lumber, then re- 

 placed by dikes using lumber treated with creosote. This 

 lumber had been permeated under pressure with creosote 

 to withstand the action of teredoes, a boring mollusk, 

 which eat up and destroy untreated lumber dikes in two 

 or three years. In many instances in rebuilding a dike it 

 has been found advisable to change and re-locate part of 

 it, to prevent deposit of mud by the tides. 



Then it was found that cement would harden under 

 water. A permanent dike seemed to be the thing, even 

 though it's construction was slow and costly. The advant- 

 ages and disadvantages were discussed in many 

 Association meetings. Fifteen years had elapsed since I 

 had started to put in any creosote lumber dikes, and they 

 needed replacement, so I started to rebuild them with 

 cement. First the form, or about one hundred feet of it, 



(38) 



