40 OYSTER CULTURE EXPERIMENTS IN LOUISIANA. 



the palmetto, was enormous in quantity. At the end of the first month 

 there were over 800 oysters between one-e-ighth and one-half inch 

 long on each leaf and there were probably over three times that many 

 smaller spat. One month later, however, practically all of these had 

 dropped off and had become lost in the mud, while the few still at- 

 tached fell away at the slightest touch. After the lapse of a year 

 no trace of oysters was to be found, the brush had become covered 

 with slime and more or less rotten, while the palmetto was reduced 

 to a few wisps of fiber still attached to the stem and a small mass 

 of decayed material on the bottom. 



The foregoing experiments exhausted the list of cultch materials 

 available at this place, and in view of the results the work was 

 abandoned. It is believed that the hopelessness of the attempt to 

 use at present the very soft bottoms in this vicinity has been demon- 

 strated. They undoubtedly can be made available for oyster culture 

 by the use of large quantities of sand or shells to form an artificial 

 firm surface, but such materials would have to be transported long 

 distances and the expense would be at present prohibitive, especially 

 in view of the area of naturally more favorable bottom to be found 

 in adjacent waters. That a prolific strike occurs in this region was 

 shown and it is probable that it can be depended on yearly. It was 

 also demonstrated, by the few surviving oysters, that the conditions 

 are favorable for very rapid growth. 



PELICAN LAKE. 



After the abandonment of the plantation at Seabreeze, experi- 

 ments were begun at Pelican Lake, on the recommendation of the 

 state oyster commission. Large operations in planting seed oysters 

 from the natural beds had recently been undertaken by a comj^any at 

 Houma, and it appeared desirable to determine whether the method 

 of cultch planting to catch a strike of young oysters was feasible. 

 The location also appeared to have some advantage from the presence 

 of a watchman to prevent depredations and the destruction of the 

 boundary marks, but the expectations in this respect were not realized. 



Pelican Lake is a somewhat quadrangular body of water lying- 

 northwest of Lake Pelto, with which it communicates through Bay 

 Kond and connecting bayous. At its southwestern corner it is con- 

 nected with Wilson Bay and on its northern and northeastern borders 

 are the mouths of several considerable bayous. The bay has an area 

 of 5 or 6 square miles and a depth, toward the middle, of about 6 or 7 

 feet, gradually shoaling to 3 or 4 feet closer to the shores. There 

 are strong currents near the entrances of Wilson Bay and Bayou 

 Go-to-Hell, but in the greater part of the lake they are sluggish. 



The salinity of the water is rather high, the specific gravity rang- 

 ing, during the three years in which it was under observation, be- 

 tween 1.0136 and 1.0209, the average of all observations, 34 in number, 



