262 Our Food Mollusks 



make a definite statement of the average rate of growth 

 of oysters in any of the great oyster fields. One bay or 

 river mouth may afford advantages such as food, that a 

 neighboring locality lacks, and growth here may be much 

 more rapid than elsewhere. But the general practice of 

 ovstermen in Long Island Sound is to allow oysters to 

 grow four, or very rarely three years, after the spat has 

 been collected. 



Without doubt, in Louisiana waters, the average time 

 required to produce a marketable oyster having a length 

 of five or six inches, is at least a year shorter than in the 

 northern field. Usually this size will be attained in 

 three years from the time of attachment, and sometimes 

 in two years. In Quarantine Bay, whole beds have been 

 known to develop in eight months, oysters averaging 

 nearly three inches in length. In Bayou Coquette, col- 

 lectors have borne oysters more than two inches long in 

 seven months. A piece of rock in the possession of the 

 U. S. Bureau of Fisheries bears forty or fifty shells, all 

 more than four inches long, that had grown in the waters 

 of Bayou Schofield in twenty-three months. In many 

 parts of Terrebonne Parish, oysters are said to attain 

 marketable size in three years. It is said that in Bayou 

 Cook, from which come most of the best oysters, the 

 period of growth is but two years. So reliable and well 

 informed an observer as Mr. H. F. Moore, of the Bureau 

 of Fisheries, states that he has seen in Plaquemines 

 Parish " oysters six inches long which, from known 

 data, could not have been over twenty-three months old." 

 No comment is necessary on the immense advantage pos- 

 sessed by the Louisiana culturist in this short growing 

 season. 



While starfish never molest oysters in this field, the 



