REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 29 
sediment to subside, billions of oyster ‘‘fry” can be pumped from the area B through 
the mass of shells covering the platform A. 
The best possible conditions could be maintained and the shells could be kept 
clean in the pond A by overhauling them by hand from time to time, giving each 
one a shaking in the water, so as to always present clean surfaces for spatting during 
the six to eight weeks within which that occurs. With such a plant, costing about 
$1,000 to $2,000 for its first installation, I would expect that something of permanent 
value might come, and that such establishments would become the basis for more 
extensive enterprises controlled by private capital. 
The device here described provides many things in the best and cheapest form, 
though it is not assumed that the plan may not be greatly improved and perhaps 
modified as a result of practical experience. The aims to be sought are: (1) A vast 
amount of surface in the form of clean shells supported upon a platform, placed in 
position about the Ist day of July, when (2) the wind engine may be started to 
pump the water charged with ‘‘fry” from the bed of adult spawning oysters. 
(3) The “fry” should be pumped from the surface, where it swims foratime. This, 
T think, isan important point. Past experience shows that the passage of the ‘“‘ fry” 
through a pump does not injure it. With such a plant, and in the light of past 
experiences at Sea Isle, especially the season of 1891, for every bushel of shells put 
into the nursery I should expect a bushel of seed. Past experience shows that this 
seed will, in the space of twelve months, reach a size of 24 inches. This estimate I 
believe to be a fair one, and since the installation or plant is practically a permanent 
fixture, the possibility of conducting such establishments as permanent nurseries 
for the production of seed oysters for planting is seen to be a practical matter 
awaiting a practical test. Oysters are like potatoes; they will stay just where you 
plant them. The only one of their stages that is locomotive is the “ fry ” or swim- 
ming stage. Withsuch a device as the above we get the maximum possible spatting 
capacity from an abundant source of fry production. That source should be at 
least 200 bushels of adult spawners—better still if it were 2,000 bushels. This last 
number of spawners should yield at least 600,000,000,000 of fry. This vast multi- 
tude of young oysters pumped through 800 to 5,000 bushels of shells should yield an 
abundant supply of spat capable of growing into “plants” or seed oysters, fit for 
restocking exhausted beds. 
The time may come, as it already has in parts of the country, where oyster and 
clam shells can not be obtained in sufficient quantity to serve as the ‘‘cultch” or 
nidus upon which the “fry” is to attach itself When this happens it will be an 
easy matter to produce a cheap kind of tile or earthenware by machinery, in curved 
flakes somewhat like the oyster shell itself in shape, that can be “ burned” or 
“kilned” somewhat after the manner of bricks. This material could be produced 
in vast quantity and very cheaply for the purpose of furnishing the foundations for 
the ‘“‘spat” or seed oysters in these oyster nurseries of the future. The experiments 
conducted under my direction at Sea Isle for the past two years, on behalf of the 
United States Fish Commission, have served to show what the probabilities of arti- 
ficial oyster-seed culture may some day become when pursued with sufficient capital 
and energy. 
: PACIFIC COAST. 
While it has been impossible during the past year to undertake 
any extensive investigations or experiments respecting the subject of 
increasing the oyster supply on the Pacific coast, observations upon 
the temperature and density of the water in places supposed to be 
favorable to oyster growth have been made whenever the opportunity 
permitted. Such inquiries, continued from year to year, as they have 
been in the past, will ultimately yield information of great value to those 
desirous of attempting the establishment of new oyster plants from one 
e 
