116 NEW SOUTH WALES 



Lake Fusaro is liiglily interpsting as being tlie first seat of oyster 

 culture. It is the Avernus of Virgil. It is still devoted to the highly 

 profitable art of oyster-farming. The mode of oyster-breeding at this 

 place is now, as it was eighteen centuries ago, to erect artificial pyramids 

 of stones in the water, surrounded by stakes of wood, in order to inter- 

 cept the spawn. Fagots of branches were also used to collect the spawn, 

 which must find a holding-on place within forty-eight hours after its 

 emission, or it will be lost for ever. 



The Royal Commission (Ireland) say : — Hurdles and fascines have 

 been found to answer well as collectors, and they will be found cheaper. 

 They are fixed in rows, by means of pegs, about 2 or 3 feet above the 

 oysters, which are scattered on the soil under them. 



Furze bushes are also found to answer fairly, but fascines and 

 bushes are scarcely so suitable in a tide-way, in consequence of the 

 liability of the twigs to catch weed, break, and float away, when the 

 spat is carried with them. In all cases when wood is employed for 

 collectors, it should be dry, hard, and sapless, and cut, at least, in the 

 preceding season. Oysters are more easily detached from wood col- 

 lectors ; the loss or damage to the shell breaking them oflP is least upon 

 fascines, as the twigs are easily broken off"; the loss is greater on 

 hurdles, greater still on tiles, and greatest of all on stones. The young 

 oyster, though somewhat malformed at times on twigs, soon regains its 

 shape when detached without damage. Tiles are largely used in France 

 because they are cheap — about £2 per thousand. One cultivator, at 

 Auray, possesses 200,000 tiles, and on these he obtained, in 1869, six 

 millions of oysters. 



In New South Wales the production of oysters is immensely beyond 

 our present requirements, and nature has also provided us so amply 

 with holding-on places (rocks, mangrove trees, &c.) for collecting the 

 spat, that it appears almost superfluous for us to allude to the subject of 

 oyster-breeding ; but this state of things may not always continue, and 

 at some future time information on breeding oysters will be as useful as 

 that on the growth and fattening of oysters is at the present time. 



As respects the fattening of oysters. — The nature of the bed or soil 

 on which it rests is a matter of the greatest importance. Bertram says 

 the beds of ' natives' are all situated on the London clay or on similar 

 formations. * * * The portion of the beds set apart for the rear- 

 ing of ' natives' is as sacred as the waxen cells devoted to the growth 

 of queen bees. But, although called ' natives,' in many instances they 

 are not ' natives' at all, but are, on the contrary, a grand mixture of all 

 kinds of oysters, being brought from Prestonpans and Newhaven, in 

 the Firth of Forth, and from many other places, to augment the stock. 

 Many circumstances highly favourable to the growth and fattening of 

 oysters are the reverse for successful breeding. Growth and fattening 

 will proceed where there may be a large amount of fresh water and a 

 strong current : the former would prove prejudicial to spatting, and the 

 latter tend to prevent the adhesion of spat— at least in the locality at which 

 it is voided. It is a remarkable fact that there are no fine-flavoured 

 oysters where there is not fresh water, and this fact was noticed by 

 Pliny more than eighteen hundred years ago. The Royal Commission 

 (Ireland) says : For fattening there are few places better than a salt 



