OYSTER CULTUKE EXPERIMENTS IN LOUISIANA. 27 



Writing in 1898 one of the authors said : 



It .eems^Di-obable that the scarcity of oysters iu Falsemouth Bay is due iu 

 Hrge^^art to the lack of suitable places of attachment for the spat, and if this be 

 so there is but little doubt that productive beds might be established by plant- 

 ing shells, together with a sufficient number of brood oysters to furnish fry. 

 we found here the largest area of firm bottom discovered anywhere withm the 

 limits of the reconnoissance. In most other parts of the district tbe haid 

 bottom is distributed in small patches lying like islands in the midst of soft 

 mud but in Falsemouth Bay shells and seed could be deposited almost any- 

 whe;e without danger of becoming engulfed. The amount of oyster food is 

 larger than almost anywhere else in the district, the average numbei of 

 diatoms in each liter of water 1 foot above the bottom being about 2-.O00^ 

 The extreme fatness of the oysters is also ample evidence of the abundance c>^ 

 food, although, of course, the amount available for each mdividual would 

 become less if planting were extensively undertaken. 



Althouoh, as previously stated, considerable areas of bottom have 

 been leased in contiguous and neighboring waters, the recommenda- 

 tions just quoted have borne no fruit, and itwaswith the purpose ot 

 testing their validity that experiments were undertaken at tins 



^^The site selected for the experimental work was in a small bight 

 in the northeastern part of the bay, about one-third of a mde from 

 the mouth of a deep cut-off running into Nine-mde Bayou. Ihe 

 water has a depth of about 3^ feet at low tide. 



Pirate Point on one side and a chain of several small islands on 

 the other form a somewhat funnel-shaped area with its small end 

 opening into Nine-mile Bayou and its large end communicating with 

 Treasure Bav and the waters to the eastward. The tidal flow enter- 

 ino- and leaving the interior waters in large part passes through this 

 area and, as the bayou communicating with Mississippi Sound is 

 wide and deep, the currents, especially in the northern part, where 

 the plantation is located, are moderately strong and constant. 

 Measurements on the planted beds indicate a current of about one- 

 half mile per hour on moderate tides, and observation s^iowed the 

 rate to be approximately uniform over an area of several thousand 

 acres in this vicinitv and probably over the entire eastern part ot 

 the bay. The importance of this fact need not be indicated to prac- 

 tical oyster planters. t • n 



The'salinitv of the water is comparatively low, rendering the oys- 

 ters rather insipid when used as "shell stock," but not interfering 

 with their value for the shucking trade. During the spring and 

 summer of 1008 the water was nearly fresh, its specific gravity rang- 

 ino- about 1.0020, but at all other times during the experiment it was 

 somewhat higher, fluctuating between 1.0080 and 1-00^ with an 

 averao-e of 1.0050 for the entire period and about 1.00(0 m the 

 oyster%eason. During the three years of the investigation there was 



