242 Our Food Mollusks 



torn is increased, and clusters are broken apart, the num- 

 ber of single small oysters on the bottom being rapidly 

 multiplied. Oysters probably are not culled on the 

 ground with the purpose of extending or improving the 

 beds, but because the waste material from culling is too 

 great in volume to be carried to the shore. But here is 

 only another demonstration of the fact that the shelling 

 of the bottom and the breaking and scattering of clusters 

 soon produces a valuable oyster bed. 



The total area of the existing river tonging grounds 

 is so limited that they have never been of great com- 

 mercial importance, and in recent years have become 

 much less prolific than formerly, because of excessive 

 tonging. Before the opening of canning establishments 

 like those at Beaufort, it was sometimes possible for a 

 tonger to gather in one day thirty or even forty bushels 

 of oysters from these river beds; but the canneries so 

 stimulated the fishing that at the present time the max- 

 imum catch is not more than fifteen bushels. The price 

 received for these oysters, also, is small. When sold at 

 the canneries, a bushel seldom brings the tonger more 

 than twelve cents. In certain seasons, however, he is 

 able to sell his oysters for immediate consumption, and 

 then may receive as much as twenty-five cents a bushel 

 for them. At best, the tonger's business is a poor one. 



Experiment also has shown that on many of the tong- 

 ing grounds natural conditions are so variable that all 

 the care that may be given to growing oysters would be 

 unavailing. Variations in the density of the water, 

 especially, are such that sometimes, even for several suc- 

 cessive seasons, oysters become so poor as to be quite un- 

 salable. 



While river or shore grounds, with their reefs and tong- 



