50 L\ S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



led to the construction of the wire bags having the proper dimensions 

 for uniform setting. 



The wire bags were made of from II/2 to 2 inch mesh chicken wire, 

 which was cut so as to form the walls of a cylindrical container hav- 

 ing a length of 36 inches and a diameter of 12 inches. They had a 

 capacity of 1 bushel and were tilled with oyster, scallop, clam, or sea 

 scallop shells according to the locality in which they were used. In 

 making the bags the wire in the 24-inch rolls was found to be most 

 suitable and was cut in pieces 4 feet long. Each piece was then folded 

 lengthwise and the ends closed either by twisting the wires together 

 or by weaving a short piece of No. 18 annealed iron wire through 

 them. The bags were then filled w^ith shells and closed tightly by 

 drawing and weaving the open edges together w^ith a piece of the 

 annealed wire. In these cheap containers a large quantit}^ of shells 



Figure 2. — Stacking 6 bushels of shells on 1 square yard of bottom by means of 



wire bags 



can be handled very easily and thrown from wharf to boat and onto 

 the beds without the bags breaking open. The total cost for material 

 and labor in preparing and setting out these collectors amounted to 

 approximately 25 cents per bag. For operations on a large scale the 

 cost of operations could be greatly reduced by using ready-made 

 bags and filling them hj one end from a hopper by a method similar 

 to that employed in handling grain. 



In 1927 and 1928 the Avire-bag method of spat collection was tested 

 on a small commercial scale at Great South Bay, Long Island; New 

 Haven Harbor, East Haven Harbor, Branford Harbor, and Milford 

 Harbor, Conn. ; and at Onset, Mass. The experiments in Connecti- 

 cut and Long Island were carried on by the author, and those in 

 Massachusetts were under the direction of Doctor Galtsoff. In the 

 following tables a brief summary is given of the results that were 

 obtained in these localities. 



