THE OYSTER- INDUSTRY. 87 



The fleet employed by the oystermeu here consists of nine sailboats, worth, perhaps, $2,500 in total ; the care 

 of the beds and running of the boats give support to about a dozen families, and occasional wages to others at 

 the height of the season, the pay being about $2 a day. 



Oyster-business at Westport. — Westport, Connecticut, is a little harbor on the Saugatuck river, one of the 

 most beautiful of the many charming streams that debouch along this part of the coast. The river has long been 

 celebrated for the abundance, large size, and excellent flavor of its natural oysters. They grew almost continuously, 

 in favorable seasons, from the mouth of the river up to the village bridge, a distance of about four miles, and the 

 farmers who lived along the river were accustomed to gather them in any desired quantity, without a thought of 

 exhausting the supply. The depletion came at last, however, and now few marketable oysters, native to the 

 Saugatuck, are ever procured. 



Some years ago, when attention was first called to the desirability of transplanting oysters and raising them 

 upon artificial beds, the Westport men staked oft' a large area at the mouth of the Saugatuclv. No ground within 

 the river, however, was allowed to be assigned, the town reserving all this as " common ground", where seed might 

 be gathered by poor men and everybody, to be sold to the planters. The amount of seed thus procured annually 

 varies greatly with different years. The highest trustworthy estimate given me for any one year (and this not 

 recently) was 50,000 bushels. Last year, however, only about 4,000 bushels were caught; half was planted locally 

 and half sold to outside buyers. In midsummer a score or so of men in skifl's may often be seen in the river at 

 once, raking seed-oysters, but these work only occasionally, and there are less than a dozen men who really derive 

 their support "by foUowiiig the creek" (chiefly oystering), in the whole town. The seed used is between one and 

 three years of age, and it is sold by the skifl'men for 35 or 40 cents a bushel. Smaller mixed stuff sometimes sells 

 for 20 cents. There are only two or three sail-boats devoted to this work. 



The first eftbrts at planting were made in the mill-pond east of the village — a pond of salt water about 40 acres 

 in extent. The bottom of this pond is a soft mass of mud ; not barren, clayey mud, but a flocculent mass of decayed 

 vegetation, etc., apparently inhabited through and through by the microscopic life, both vegetable and animal, 

 which the oyster feeds upon. Although the young oysters placed there sank out of sight in this mud, they were not 

 smothered, on account of its looseness, but, on the contrary, throve to an extraordinary degree, as also did their 

 neighbors, the clams and eels, becoming of great size and extremely fat. Ten years ago oysters from this pond sold 

 for $3 a bushel ; and lor one lot $10 50 is said to have been obtained. Before long, however, a rough class of 

 loungers began to frequent the pond, and the oysters were stolen so fast, that planting there has almost wholly 

 ceased, and prices have greatly declined. 



Something over 500 acres of oyster ground have been set apart in the waters of the sound belonging to 

 Westport. This ground lies in the neighborhood of Sjirite's, Hay, Calf-pasture, and Goose islands. Two-thirds of 

 it is owned by Norwalk men and other non-residents, and therefore the town has derived no revenue of consequence 

 from it. 



The principal planter in town is Mr. Eli Bradley, who gave me the most of the information obtained'here. He has 

 been long engaged in the business, and has ijlanted many thousands of bushels of seed upon his beds, as, also, have 

 his neighbors, but there has been so much litigation concerning boundaries, so much actual thieving, and so 

 incessant persecution by the starfishes and drills, that not much has been realized. Last year (1879) no oysters 

 whatever of consequence were placed in the market from these beds. Outsiders, however, shifted certain oysters into 

 Westport waters, temporarily, and saved a good crop, the figures relating to which appear elsewhere. All the 

 residents at Westport assert strongly the extreme suitability of their ground for successful oyster-raising, barring 

 the damages inflicted by the starfishes, which, they think, they can keep free from with suflicient labor. 



Statistical eecapititlation for the Housatonic and Saugatuck region: 



Number of planters and shippers 6 



Exte it of grouufl cultivated acres.. 110 



Value of shore-property $3,500 



Nuniher of vessels and sail-boats engaged 12 



Value of same $3,000 



Number of men hired by planters 15 



Annual earnings of same $5,000 



Total number of families supported 21 



Annual sales of — 



Native oysters bushels.. 9,000 



Value of same $11,000 



Total value of oysters sold annually $11,000. 



