98 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



4. All boats or vessels engaged iu culliug should be at anchor on the 

 natural beds. 



This proviso is intended to aid in the enforcement of the preceding 

 one requiring culling upon the reefs. It will prevent the practice, 

 more or less common, of saving time by culling the oysters while under 

 way to market, with the result that the culls often fall upon unsuitable 

 bottom and are destroyed, v/hereas they would have been saved had 

 they been culled on the reefs. 



5. Every effort should be made to induce the oystermen to adopt the 

 practice of exposing shells or other cultch for the purpose of catching 

 the spat or young oysters. This method of culture is now carried on 

 to a limited extent in some i)arts of Plaquemines Parish, as may be 

 seen by reference to that section of this report which deals with the 

 subject of oyster-planting. It not only results in an improvement in 

 the quality of the oysters, as iu seed-planting, but also in a very impor- 

 tant increase in the quantity. If generally adopted it would result in 

 saving millions of oysters which now perish in the soft mud and ooze 

 for lack of i^laces for attax'hment, and every oyster so saved is an oyster 

 added to the product of the State. 



By this method of oyster-culture the planter makes himself inde- 

 jjendeut of the natural reefs; he raises his own seed oysters and there 

 is no necessity or supposititious necessity of carrying away the young 

 growth from the public beds. At the same time there is a reduction in 

 the quantity of natural-reef oysters needed for the markets, part of this 

 demand being satisfied by the oysters from the planted beds, and finally 

 these planted beds would directly benefit neighboring natural beds, 

 especially if these be somewhat exhausted, by furnishing large quanti- 

 ties of fry to aid in their recuperation. From every x^oint of view, 

 therefore, it is advantageous to encourage the planting of cultch, but 

 unless private enterprise be sufQciently keen to appreciate its opportu- 

 nities it is difficult to see how Louisiana planters can be induced to 

 undertake it. Probably the best means for bringing this about would 

 result naturally from the curtailment, as heretofore recommended, of 

 the present too liberal policy in regard to the taking of seed from the 

 natural reefs. If the men be not allowed to take small oysters and 

 shells promiscuously, and if they be compelled to cull oft" the oysters 

 less than 3 inches long, precisely as if they were taking them for the 

 markets, it will doubtless make them more alive to the advantages of 

 planting shells. It is hoped that this, with the aid of more liberal 

 regulations in regard to planting recommended hereafter, will induce 

 an increase in the acreage of planting beds and promote the use of 

 cultch rather than seed from the natural beds. It is believed that after 

 one or two men have demonstrated the advantages of the method sug- 

 gested the others will not be slow to follow. In n)any places, as has 

 been pointed out in the section dealing with oyster-i)hinting, there are 

 large quantities of shells available on the spot, and when this is not 

 the case shells, broken tiles, or other suitable materials may be brought. 



