OYSTER-BEDS OF LOUISIANA. 85 



be no difficulty in securing a set of spat on shells or other cultch laid 

 down in the vicinity, or the shell-beds might be first established and 

 the brood oysters scattered over them in the proportion of 25 to 40 

 barrels per acre. There arc perhaps several hundred thousand bar- 

 rels of shells on and around the small islands on the western side of 

 Grand Lake. These are clean and bright and in excellent condition 

 for planting, and moreover may be obtained for the labor of loading 

 them on the boats, which may be run close against the bank, so that 

 the labor of loading may be reduced to a minimum. These shells are 

 small, averaging 1 or 2 inches in diameter, and as comparatively few 

 spat would i^robably attach to each, the labor of culling would be 

 much less than if large oyster shells are used, when often a hundred 

 young attach to a single shell and the oysters grow in large clusters. 



The amount of bottom suitable for oyster-culture is comparatively 

 limited, especially if we except from consideration the extinct oyster 

 reefs. What should be done with the latter is a matter worthy of con- 

 sideration. As they now are, they are worthless to everybody. It is 

 only here and there that an adult oyster can be found, and even the few 

 old shells reuiaiuiug upon them are fast disappearing, owing to the 

 attacks of boring organisms, worms, sponges, and lamellibranchs, which 

 are rapidly bringing about their disintegration and decay. In the course 

 of time the shells will become dissolved and entirely disappear, and 

 eventually, with the deiDosit of sediment, the bottom will become almost, 

 if not quite, as soft as the surrounding mud. The young oyster, as has 

 been frequently pointed out in the publications of the Fish Commission 

 and elsewhere, is extremely minute at the time it settles down from its 

 free-swimming existence, and a very slight deposit of silt or slime is 

 often sufficient to prevent its attachment to the hard bodies which are 

 its only salvation. The shells upon these old reefs are now more or 

 less completely covered with slime and sediment, whereas upon a 

 thrifty reef there are always many comparatively clean shells to be 

 found. 



Each year that passes makes it more and more improbable that these 

 reefs will ever become rehabilitated, and even now the condition of the 

 shells is such that it is doubtful if oyster fry would find them suitable 

 places for attachment, and the time will certainly come when all hope 

 of nature again esiablishing beds must be utterly abandoned. In their 

 present condition, however, they appear to be very well adapted to 

 planting purposes, and it appears to be good economics to permit their 

 use for this i)urpose rather than to still hug the almost certainly vain 

 hope that nature will ag.in step in and renew her bounties, and, waiting 

 thus too long, lose the opportunity to make some salvage from the 

 wreck which wasteful and improvident methods have already wrought. 



Under a proper system of private culture these same reefs, now 

 worthless, could probably be made to yield a product far greater than 

 they ever did under the joint administration of nature and the natural- 

 bed oystermen. It is a just and proper regulation that prohibits plant- 



