NOTES ON OYSTER CULTUEE. 259 



this in England by private enterprise^ an order of the Board of 

 Trade under Part iii of the Sea Fisheries Act would be necessary, 

 and it is more than doubtful whether it could in such a case be ob- 

 tained. 



It is therefore from the artificial cultivation only, from the oyster 

 farms, that these tons of oysters are produced. The farms vary 

 naturally in size and complexity according to the amount of capital 

 invested in the undertaking, and in the details of management, but 

 they conform to a general type of the following character. Each 

 consists of two sections ; the one, an area of ground from 12 to 150 

 acres in extent in the bed of the Schelde, rented from the Govern- 

 ment, covered at half tide and marked off by stakes from other 

 similar properties ; the other on dry land comprising the necessary 

 buildings and the ponds (Fr. claires, pares ; Dutch, p)utten). The 

 river section of the farm is generally divided into one area on which 

 are set the collectors for the spat, and another (often some distance 

 off and in deeper water), where the " half-ware " or young oysters 

 are placed to grow to a marketable size. The plan of the land-section 

 of a typical farm is drawn in PI. XXI (slightly altered from one at 

 Bergen-op-Zoom) ; through the dyke communication is made by a 

 sluice between the Schelde and a canal ; from the latter the water 

 passes by smaller sluices into the ponds I — III, which can also be 

 put into direct communication with each other by other sluices. 

 The natural rise and fall of the tide effect the changing of the water. 

 A few buildings for packing and sorting houses, watch-house, car- 

 penter's shop, &c., and a clear space of ground for stacking the tiles 

 and " hospitals " during the winter are the chief other requirements. 

 The method of procedure is thus arranged : the collectors, common roof 

 tiles, coated first with hard, afterwards with soft lime, and thoroughly 

 dried, are set about June in the bed of the Schelde at low water at 

 right angles to the current, and sloped so as to make little eddies 

 into which the swimming spat may be swept ; they lie here, except 

 for being occasionally swirled in water to wash off the mud, till 

 September or October, by which time, if the season be good,* 

 numbers of tiny oysters will be found to have adhered to them. The 

 tiles are carefully brought on shore and arranged in the pond marked 

 II (PI. XXI) ; they are generally set like the Greek capital 11, two 

 vertical covered by one horizontal, and stand in about three to four 



* A good season is conditioned chiefly by wind, state of the water, and most of all by 

 temperature. With rough weather, foul water, and a cold summer, there will be no young 

 oysters ; but the statement so often to be met with in the evidence before committees that 

 " there has been no spat here for many years " means, not that the oysters have failed to 

 spat, but that the spat has been killed by unpropitious physical conditions, or has failed to 

 find a suitable foothold. Plenty of spat is thrown off every year. 



