THE OYSTER. IO3 



oysters to grow which have slipped through the net 

 and so escaped the dredge. The next year after, all 

 the plantation, new and old, is gone over and suitable 

 stock culled out for trade, three-year old East River 

 oysters being in demand for the European market. 

 This further thins out the beds, and the following 

 (fourth) year the main crop of fine, well-shaped, well- 

 fed oysters will be taken, and during the succeeding 

 summer, or perhaps after a year, the ground will be 

 thoroughly well cleaned up and prepared for a new 

 shelling. 



"All these remarks apply to a reasonably hard 

 bottom which requires no previous preparation. In 

 portions of Long Island Sound, especially off New 

 Haven, it has been needful to make a crust or artificial 

 surface upon the mud before laying down the shells. 

 This is done with sand, and has been alluded to in 

 the chapter on New Haven harbor. 



" Just what makes the best lodgment for oyster- 

 spawn intended to be used as seed, has been greatly 

 discussed. Oyster shells are very good, certainly, and 

 as they are cheap and almost always at hand in even 

 troublesome quantities, they form the most available 

 cultch, and are most generally used. Small gravel, 

 however, has been tried on parts of the Connecticut 

 coast with great success, the advantage being that not 

 often more than one or two oysters would be attached, 

 and therefore the evil of bunchiness would be avoided. 

 Where scallop shells, as in Narragansett Bay, or, as in 

 northern New Jersey mussels and jingles, Anomia, can 

 be procured in sufficient quantities, they are undoubt- 

 edly better than anything else, because they not only 



