THE OYSTER. 1 19 



in one of them, a few inches from the surface, and had 

 furnished a lodgment for many hundred oysters, 

 crowded so closely together that I was unable to 

 count them. 



It frequently happens that bottoms where the spat 

 may be present in the water, are so muddy that such col- 

 lectors as tiles or shells cannot be used. The French 

 have invented a collector to be used in such cases as 

 this, which they call the fascine collector. This con- 

 sists of a bundle or fagot of small branches of chest- 

 nut, oak, elm, birch, or any other suitable wood, about 

 ten or twelve feet long, bound together in the middle 

 by a tarred galvanized iron wire, which is fastened to 

 a stone, by which the bundle is anchored about a foot 

 above the bottom. These fascines are placed upon or 

 near the beds of oysters at the spawning season, and 

 are distributed in places where the set of the tides and 

 currents will carry the swimming oyster larvae to 

 them. The young oysters settle upon the branches 

 in great numbers, and attaching themselves, grow 

 rapidly, and it is not unusual for one such fagot to 

 yield several thousand. The bundles are left undis- 

 turbed for five or six months, and at the end of this 

 time they are large enough to be detached from the 

 branches, when they are ready for distribution upon 

 the planting grounds. 



This method of collecting seed oysters has never, 

 so far as I am aware, been employed in this country, 

 although the experience of all who are familiar with 

 our oyster waters must have shown how readily the 

 young growth become attached to floating or sunken 

 bushes. Our waters abound in places which are well 



