THE OYSTER. 121 



fitted for the employment of this method of gathering 

 the seed which is to be used in planting, and the fas- 

 cine collectors might be used in the mouths of creeks 

 or inlets, or along the edges of the channels, or any- 

 where where the set of the current will sweep the 

 swimming oysters past the collector. While it would 

 be advantageous to place the collectors near natural 

 beds or rocks, this is by no means essential, for the 

 young of the American oyster survive for a long 

 time in the water, and they are carried to great dis- 

 tances by the current, and there is no part of our oys- 

 ter area beyond the reach of this floating spat. 



The method may be employed on either hard or 

 soft bottom, as the collectors float above the surface of 

 the ground, but is especially adapted for bottoms too 

 soft for planting, and such bottoms may in this way 

 be made valuable as seed farms. The collectors may 

 be placed in either deep or shallow water, wherever 

 there is a current. 



With the exception of Winslow's experiments with 

 tiles, very little use has been made in America of any- 

 thing, except oyster shells, for collecting spat ; but at 

 one point in Connecticut, a plan which is essentially 

 like the one last described has been used with good 

 results for capturing spat, and for rearing marketable 

 oysters as well, upon bottoms of soft mud. 



These experiments are thus described in the reports 

 of the Connecticut Shell Fish Commission for 1882 

 and 1883: 



" The soft, muddy tracts, also, which aggregate a 

 large number of acres now neglected, it is believed will, 

 at no far distant day, become valuable for cultivation. 



6 



