92 Our Food Mollusks 



oysters have never existed, and which may be discovered 

 by intelligently directed experiment. Already many of 

 these have been determined in Long Island Sound, where 

 oysters are successfully cultivated miles from shore, 

 and under water as deep as one hundred feet. Else- 

 where on the coast, these unoccupied areas have hardly 

 been considered ; but in certain localities, as in Pamlico 

 Sound, and about the delta of the Mississippi, they will 

 undoubtedly prove to be very extensive. 



For yet another reason, European methods can hardly 

 obtain in this country. Extensive oyster culture abroad 

 would, on account of the labor involved, be impossible 

 without a social caste system. This is everywhere pres- 

 ent in Europe, and, to a genuine American, presents an 

 appalling state of affairs. Even in republican France, 

 society retains a real reverence for its princes and its 

 counts, and every other nation but Switzerland staggers 

 under the heavy burden of an idle and expensive aristoc- 

 racy. Below its members in the scale are the middle 

 classes, the trades people, subservient to their superiors, 

 and often brutally contemptuous of the under stratum, 

 the common people. The latter, born into humility, sel- 

 dom have independence bred into them, but calmly sub- 

 mit to their heaven-sent estate. And they obediently la- 

 bor for a pittance that an Americanized Oriental would 

 scorn. It is this one condition that makes oyster culture 

 possible in Europe. 



Labor of that character would be necessary if the 

 same method of oyster culture were to become profitable 

 in the United States. That it ever will exist here is im- 

 probable. It is, however, interesting to observe that 

 European social customs continue to have a great influence 

 on our own. Some of us believe that they do things bet- 



