THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF NEW JERSEY. 469 



hired for a portion of the year to work on the cultivated grounds. 

 They also engage in taking seed oysters from the natural beds, and a 

 few of them tish for clams. At other times of the year they find 

 employment in various occupations on shore. They are all American- 

 born citizens and residents of the State. 



Preparation of the oysters for market. — The season for taking up the 

 oysters from the shifting-grounds for market begins September 1. The 

 work is usually completed by December 1. After the oysters are 

 caught and culled they are placed on board small sloop-rigged vessels, 

 which the planters own for the purpose of transporting their products, 

 and carried to Eahway Biver, where they are put in floats and allowed 

 to remain in the brackish water at the entrance of the river during 

 one tide, when they are again loaded on the decks of the vessels and 

 taken to IS'ew York. This process is termed "drinking" the oysters. 

 The object of drinking is to give them an oi)portunity to "spit out" 

 the sand that may have found lodgment in the folds of their gills, and 

 also to bloat them, which temporarily improves their appearance and 

 makes them open to better advantage, their flesh beiug whitened and 

 size slightly increased. When they arrive in New York they are 

 counted and graded into two sizes, and sold to the wholesale dealers 

 by the thousand. The larger size is termed "box" oysters and the 

 smaller "cullens." The box oysters sell usually for $7 and the cullens 

 for $3.50 per thousand. 



The greater part of the oysters are marketed in this manner, but 

 limited quantities are shipped in barrels by rail or steamboat when it 

 is not convenient to transport them in vessels or their destination is 

 other than New York, which is the princix^al market for the planters 

 of this section. 



KEYPORT. 



This town, with a population of about 3,500, is located on Raritan 

 Bay, in Monmouth County. It is more extensively interested in the 

 oyster industry than any other place in the State outside of Delaware 

 Bay. The oyster-planting operations of the entire section east of Perth 

 Amboy center here, and the important grounds lying oft" this part of 

 the State are utilized by Keyport planters. 



The oyster -grounds. — A survey made in 1886, by George Cooper, a 

 civil engineer of Red Bank, showed the area of the grounds devoted to 

 oyster cultivation in Princess Bay to be 2i square miles, or 1,000 acres. 

 The remainder of the waters of the bay inside of Sandy Hook (outside 

 of Shrewsbury River bar) belonging to New Jersey form the great field 

 of operations for the extensive clam fisheries centering at Keyport, 

 Port Monmouth, and other localities in the vicinity, and comprise an 

 area of "37:^ square miles, or 23,840 acres. A comparatively small 

 proportion, therefore, of the entire area of bottom (30^ sfjuarc miles, 

 or 25,-410 acres) within these limits is utilized for the cultivation of 

 oysters, although it is thought that the larger part is well adapted 

 to oyster-planting. , 



