86 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Upon the opposite side of the entrance to the Housatonic lies one of the principal seed-grounds in the sound ; 

 that side of the Housatonic river is one vast natural oyster-bed all the way fi-om Stratford light up to the bridges, 

 a distance of about three miles. There are many persons who live along the shore in Stratford, who devote almost 

 their whole time to the gathering of the young oysters and selling them to the vessels, which in summer throng the 

 bay. They get from 15 to 25 cents a bushel, and there are perhaps 50 men who make this a business. 



Seed-gathering- at the mouth of the IIousatonic. — In IMay sloops and small schooners begin to come 

 after the seed, which is of a year's (or less) growth. They hail principally from Xorwalk and its vicinity. This fleet 

 gradually increases, until in mid-summer there are soilietimes to be seen from 75 to 100 vessels at once in the 

 mouth of the river. These vessels do not dredge for the seed. They anchor near the bed and send out skiffs, with 

 a crew, who tong the oysters up until their skiff is full, when they take it to their vessel to be unloaded. From 

 one to half a dozen skiffs are employed by ejich vessel, which is thus able to load up quickly, go home with its 

 cargo, and be ready to return. To avoid any loss of time, however, in voyages back and forth, some owners of 

 beds keep one or more vessels anchored in the Housatonic all the while, upon which the crews live, who load other 

 vessels that are constantly passing back and forth. The rapidity of this work is shown by the fact, that one man 

 with two assistants will put upon his sloop a full cargo of 500 bushels in two days, and be off and back in another 

 two days, ready to go at it again. Persons who live upon the shore, and who claim to found their estimate on 

 trustworthy facts, say that 400,000 bushels of seed were taken oft' these Housatonic beds between Maj" and 

 November, 1879. 



Objections to present method of seed-gathering. — Notwithstanding this heavy and long continued 

 drain, these nurseries do not seem in danger of depletion. Few oysters, of course, manage to reach maturity, but 

 there are enough to furnish spawn to repopulate the district, which the constant scraping fits in the best possible 

 manner for securing a set. The people of Stratford, however, are beginning to object to longer allowing an 

 unrequited privilege to everybody to rake the beds. Such an indiscriminate crowd embiaces many loose characters, 

 and frequent petty annoyances, with some serious trespasses, have occurred on shore. There seems no way to get 

 rid of the nuisance, however, except to declare the whole ground available for cultiu-e, and stake it off. This is 

 urged by some of the shoremen, who think they see in this plan some cliance of making the meadows and river- 

 bottom a valuable property, and a blessing instead of a curse to them. This meets with considerable oi)position, 

 however, and the old foolishness about "n.atural beds" seems an insurmountable obstacle. Every year the 

 staking-off and cultivation of this river -bottom is delayed Stratford loses by it in a way she will one day regret. 

 Stratford also possesses along her front very good deep-water ground, running from Stratford jioint to the IMiddle 

 Ground, which remains to be utilized. The Housatonic seed, however, could not be utilized on this outer ground, 

 since it is the long, fresh-water variety, which would not flourish in water so salt as that of the outer sound. 



Oyster-business at Bridgeport. — At Bridgeport there is a small but flourishing oyster-business, participated 

 in by three firms of planters. The natural oyster-ijroducing ground off this harbor extended from Stratford to 

 Black Eock, a distance of about five or six miles, but by 1850 it had become exhausted of all salable oysters, and 

 even became of little value as a seed-producing area. Previously to that seven boats were owned at Bridgei)ort, 

 all of which, since 1850, have been obliged to go elsewhere or change their work. Long ago, however, a Fair Haven 

 man utilized ground at the point of the beach at the mouth of the harbor, to bed down southern oysters, and his 

 exami)le was followed in a small degree by Bridgeport men. The first planting of native seed, however, was not 

 until 1811, young oysters being brought from the Saugatuck and from Westport. At present Stratford and 

 Housatonic seed is chiefly used. For opening purposes the Housatonic river seed is regarded as the best, because 

 it becomes salable one year quicker than the sound seed ; but for shipping in the shell the deep-water seed produces 

 more profit, though of sloM'er growth, the mature stock being single, shapely, and of large size. 



The practice of catching seed-oysters on shells prevails here with much success, but will be so fully discussed 

 in a future chapter, that I refrain from doing more than mention the fact here ; and add that Mr. Wheeler Hawley, 

 the largest planter at Bridgeport, believes himself to have been one of the first, if not the first, to adopt this method 

 of oyster-culture in Long Island sound, putting the date of his experiments at 1853. 



Iteplying to my questions in regard to methods and cost of following this practice in this harbor, one of the 

 planters informed me that, in his case, he counts expenses per acre in preparation of oyster-bottom as follows : 



500 bushels shells ("stools'') at 5 cents $25 00 



50 bushels of "spawners" (unculled) 12 00 



Total cost of seeding 37 00 



From this, he thought he ought to take up 1,000 bushels of seed to the acre of marketable oysters after two 

 years, with a remainder left for the third year. The cost of taking uj) would be about 20 cents a bushel. If seed- 

 oysters are bought to be i)laced upon the ground, from 25 to 00 cents a bushel must be paid for them. 



The total acreage under culti\'ation at Bridgeport, for which a rental of $2 an acre is paid to the town, is about 

 110 acres. On this ground there were raised in the winter of 1879-80 about 8,000 bushels, which were mainly sold in 

 the shell to New York buyers, at an average of about $1 12i a bushel. These oysters were large and iat, often 

 opening six quarts to the bushel, as I was informed. In 1857 they brought $12 a barrel. 



