REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 29 



sediment to subside, billions of oyster ''fry" can be pumped from the area B through 

 the mass of shells covering the platform A. 



The best possible conditions could bo maintained and the shells could be kept 

 clean in the pond A by overhauling them by hand from time to time, giving each 

 one a shaking in the water, so as to always present clean surfaces for spatting during 

 the six to eight weeks within which that occui's. With such a plant, costing about 

 $1,000 to $2,000 for its first installation, I would expect that something of permanent 

 value might come, and that such establishments would become the basis for more 

 extensive enterprises controlled by private capital. 



The device here described provides many things in the best and cheapest form, 

 though it is not assumed that the plan may not be greatly improved and perhaps 

 modified as a result of practical experience. The aims to be sought are: (1) A vast 

 amount of surface in the form of clean shells supported upon a platform, placed in 

 position about the 1st day of July, when (2) the wind engine may be started to 

 pump the water charged with "fry" from the bed of adult spawning oysters. 

 (3) The " fry " should be pumped from the surface, where it swims for a time. This, 

 I think, is an important point. Past experience shows that the passage of the "fry" 

 through a pump does not injure it. With such a plant, aud in the light of past 

 experiences at Sea Isle, especially the season of 1891, for every bushel of shells put 

 into the nursery I should expect a bushel of seed. Past experience shows that this 

 seed will, in the space of twelve months, reach a size of 2^ inches. This estimate I 

 believe to be a fair one, and since the installation or plant is practically a permanent 

 fixture, the possibility of conducting such establishments as permanent nurseries 

 for the production of seed oysters for planting is seen to be a practical matter 

 awaiting a practical test. Oysters are like potatoes; they will stay just where you 

 plant them. The only one of their stages that is locomotive is the " fry " or swim- 

 ming stage. With such a device as the above we get the maximum possible spatting 

 capacity from an abundant source of fry production. That source should be at 

 least 200 bushels of adult spawners — better still if it were 2,000 bushels. This last 

 number of spawners should yield at least 600,000,000,000 of fry. This vast multi- 

 tude of young oysters pumped through 800 to 5,000 bushels of shells should yield an 

 abundant supply of spat capable of growing into "plants" or seed oysters, fit for 

 restocking exhausted beds. 



The time may come, as it already has in jiarts of the country, where oyster and 

 clam shells can not be obtained in sufficient quantity to serve as the "cultch" or 

 nidus upon which the "fry" is to attach itself. When this happens it will be an 

 easy matter to produce a cheap kind of tile or earthenware by machinery, iu curved 

 flakes somewhat like the oyster shell itself in shape, that can be "burned" or 

 "kilned" somewhat after the manner of bricks. This material could be produced 

 in vast quantity and very cheaply for the purpose of furnishiug the foundations for 

 the "spat" or seed oysters in these oyster nurseries of the future. The experiments 

 conducted under my direction at Sea Isle for the past two years, on behalf of the 

 United States Fish Commission, have served to show what the probabilities of arti- 

 ficial oyster-seed culture may some day become when pursued with sufficient capital 

 and energy. 



PACIFIC COAST. 



While it has been impossible during the past year to undertake 

 any extensive investigations or exx^eriments respecting the subject of 

 increasing the oyster supply on the Pacific coast, observations upon 

 the temperature and density of the water iu places supposed to be 

 favorable to oyster growth have been made whenever the opportunity 

 Ijermitted. Such inquiries, continued from year to year, as they have 

 been in the past, will ultimately yield information of great value to those 

 desirous of attempting the establishment of new oyster plants from one 



