72 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



In a third case Captain George H. Townseud gave me a statement of the expenses of starting a farm of 25 acres 

 off the moutli of East Haven river. Tbis was a more elaborate arrangement, but on the other hand was accomplished, 

 through a variety of favorable conditions, cheaper than would have been possible with ground otherwise situated: 



2,000 bushels sm.all river oysters, at 25 cents $500 00 



Spreading same and stalling, at 5 cents 100 00 



600 busliels dredged seed, at 40 cents 240 00 



10,000 bushels of shells, put down at 4 cents 400 00 



1,240 00 



I think it would not be unfair to average the cost of securing, surveying, and preparing the deep-water beds at 

 about SiO an acre, or about $4,000 for 100 acres. To this must be added about $2 an acre for ground-surveys, 

 buoys, anchors, etc. But now that he has got his set everywhere upon this 50 acres of shells, the planter's anxieties 

 have just begun. The infant mollusk, when first it takes hold upon the stool, the merest speck upon the surface of 

 the white shell, is exceedingly tender. The chances in its favor in the race against its numberless adversaries are 

 extremely few, almost as few as befriended the egg when first it left the protection of the mother-mantle. The 

 longer it lives the better are its chances, but the tender age lasts all through the autumn and until it has attained 

 the size of a quarter-dollar piece; after that it will withstand ordinary discouragements. It often happens, therefore, 

 that the "splendid set" proves a delusion, and Christmas sees the boasted bed a barren waste. The cultivator finds 

 his work as risky as mining. "You can't see into the water," he says; and the miner quotes back his proverb: 

 " You can't see into the ground." A sufQcient cause may usually be assigned for the death of large districts of 

 infant oysters which appeared to get a good start. Starvation is probably the true explanation. Some evil current 

 bore away from them the necessary food. In other cases specific causes, the most potent of which are storms, can 

 be pointed out. 



Vicissitudes and losses of oy.ster-planting. — In the fall, just when the young oyster-beds are in their 

 most delicate condition, occur the most destructive gales that afflict tlie Connecticut coast. They blow from the 

 southwest, and if, as occasionally happens, they follow a stiff southeaster, producing a cross-sea of the worst 

 character. The water is thrown into a turmoil to a depth, in some cases, of four or five fathoms, and everywhere 

 between that and the beach the oyster-beds are torn to pieces, all boundaries are dissolved, and windrows of oysters, 

 containing thousands of bushels, are cast up along the whole extent of the beach. Although so great a disaster 

 as this is rare, it does occasionally happen, and hardly a winter passes without more or less shifting of beds or other 

 damage by tempest. The burying of beds under drifted sand is more uncommon ofl' Xew Haven than easterly; 

 but in the harbor, where the bottom is soft, mud is often carried upon the beds to such an extent as to smother, if 

 not wholly to hide, the oyster. All that part of the harbor near the mouth of West river is so liable to this accident 

 that oystermen have abandoned that district altogether. It is believed by many that the beds in the sound, in 

 water more than twenty-five feet deej), ai-e safe from disturbance from gales; but others decline to put their faith 

 in any depth thus far planted. Frequently oysters cast up by storms, if attended to immediately, can be saved 

 and replanted with profit. 



Management of the oystek-faem.— Having secured a colony of young oysters upon the stools which have 

 been laid down for them, they are left alone until they attain the age of three, four, or five years, according to their 

 thrift and the trade for which they are designed, by the end of which time they have reached a large size and 

 degree of fatness, if the season has been favorable. If, as is largely done by those planters who live at Oyster 

 point, the oysters are to be sold as seed to Providence river or other planters, they are taken up when only one or 

 two years old. Not a great quantity of this seed was so disposed of last year— not over 20,000 bushels, I should say. 

 It is not considered, as a rule, so profitable as to wait for the maturity of the stock. 



Experiences of Captain Townsend in oyster-planting.— In no way, probably, could I better illustrate 

 the series of slow experiments and expensive trials by which the more intelligent of the New Haven planters have 

 succeeded so far as they have done, than by giving an abstract of a diary kept for several years by one of the most 

 energetic of these experimenters, Capt. Chas. H. Townsend. I am able to avail myself of it through his consent, 

 and the kindness of Prof. A. E. Verrill, of Yale College, to whom it had been intrusted for scientific use. Captain 

 Townsend lived at South Haven, where his brother, Mr. George H. Townsend, still continues the business on a 

 large scale. Captain Townsend was in command of ocean steamers for many years, and took special pains, when 

 in Europe, to study the methods of oyster-culture in vogue on the French coast, and was able to apply many hints 

 there obtained to his plantations on this side, thougli he found so great a difference of circumstances and natural 

 history between French and American oysters, that his transatlantic experience was of less use here than he had 

 expected it to be. The "fort", to which he often refers, is old Fort Hale, on the rocky eastern store of the 

 harbor, near the mouth. It was a picturesijue brick structure in 1812, but had become dilapidated at the time when 

 the civil war of 18(51 broke out, and so was razed and transferred into a series of earthworks and bomb-proofs. 

 The moat and its tide-sluice became the scene of Captain Townsend's experiments, detailed in the account condensed 

 herewith. 



