190 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



wLole product is opened tliere to prevent tlie carriage of the extra weight of shells. The wagoners carry them to 

 interior towns and peddle them at various prices. It is thus that Wilmington is supplied, and the retail price there 

 is $2 a bushel. Wilmington also receives oysters in small quantities from Myrtle Grove sound, where some 

 experiments in planting have just been begun about two miles northeast of Fort Fisher. These are small, but fat 

 and very choice specimens. Another point whence oysters of good reputation come, is Winbury, on Topsail sound. 

 It is difficult to come at it, but I judge that from fifty to sixty thousand bushels is an estimate of all that the 

 production of the Kew river and Wilmington region would require annually. Out of the perhajis 50 men who busy 

 themselves regularly in this industry, as tongers, openers, carters, or shippers, there are none who are not also 

 largely engaged in other sources of daily bread. It is believed by those best informed upon the subject, that the 

 state law which prohibits dredging within the state is an injury rather than a blessing to the oyster-beds. They 

 are probablj^ right. Under proper restrictions which shall save the privilege from abuse — something hardly to be 

 apprehended in this case, owing to the geographical conditions — dredging would aid both in the extension of the 

 oystei'-bearing areas and in the better production of good single oysters on the grounds where they now grow, but 

 in a coarse, bunchy way. The permission of dredging might bring some evils, as in the Chesapeake, but the benefits 

 following to North Carolina would probably overbalance any harm. 



Statements for Noeth Carolina. — Reviewing this, furnishes estimated totals as follows, for the whole state: 



Number of planters and tougers 1,000 



Number of shippers 10 



Value of shore-property $15,000 



Number of vessels . 90 



Number of small boats 800 



Value of fleet and tools $53,500 



Number of shoremen hired 10 



Annual earnings of same $1,300 



Families supported, partially 1, 000 



Native oysters annually sold bushels.. 170,000 



Value of same $UO,000 



51. OYSTER-FISHERIES OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 



Charleston and vicinity. — At Charleston all the business is confined to a little desultory planting around 

 Sullivan's island, and it is doubtful if there is any shipping of oysters done there whatever. The same is true of 

 Port Royal ; and I am convinced that 50,000 bushels, worth ijerhaps $20,000, would supply the yearly demand of 

 the whole South Carolina coast. The interior towns of the state derive their supplies from the North or else from 

 Savannah. 



52. OYSTER-FISHERIES OF GEORGIA. 



Savannah. — A somewhat unsatisfactory report of the oyster-business in the neighborhood of Savannah, was 

 aU that it was possible for me to obtain during my stay there ; but it is a small industry at best, though the 

 most imjiortant producing and shipping point on the southern coast. 



Savannah is situated upon blufl's on the banks of the Savannah river, just where the salt meadows and sea 

 islands give place to the mainland. In the Savannah river, itself, no oysters gi-ow above the immediate mouth. 

 This is due to the great volume of fresh water which it pours out. In time of freshet, the red, turbid current is 

 visible 25 or 30 miles at sea, and so completely freshens the water to the very outlet, that oysters will not flourish. 

 Off Potato point, however, and in the shape of tAvo elongated banks, marked by beacons, in midstream, oyeterbeds 

 are to be found, and are raked for seed, or, more than that, for marketable oysters, which are brought to Savannah. 

 These beds in Tybee roads are maiidy tonged by colored men, who are fishermen at other times, or do it in a 

 desultory way. Their number and catch varies endlessly. 



Raccoon oysters. — But everywhere in the thousand channels which intersect the marshy islands that border 

 the coast, making a perfect net- work of salt-water tide-ways, the raccoon or bunch oysters grow in endless profusion. 

 Let there be old shells, sunken fragments of castaway stuff, logs, or anything upon which it is possible for an oyster 

 to catch, and it will be surely covered with the young shells before a single season has gone bj'. The oysters spawn 

 here regularly from April till June, and scatteringly till a much later date. So prolific of spawn are they, and so 

 favorable seem to be the conditions for their safe growth, that such an object as an old shell will become completely 

 coated with the infant bivalves. As these grow (and with great rapidity) they sink and gather in the mud, and 

 crowd each other for lack of room to enlarge. All these effects produce their sleiider and iiregular shape, they 

 being able to increase only in the narrow, outward direction. Before they are half grown a second season bestows 

 upon them a new collection of young oysters, which must struggle in a similar way, and thus there arise clusters or 

 bunches or columns of oysters, sometimes three or four feet high and several inches thick, which are closely 

 agglomerated and of very heavy weight. These are called raccoon or 'coon oysters, and are collected, knocked to 

 pieces, and sold in market, chiefly by colored men. Though some of them will not furnish a meat much larger than 

 the thumbnail, they are sweet and well flavored when brought from a good locality. 



