FIFTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 33 



thrown away in the week, in the water in Delaware bay, where 

 there were no shells or oysters in the neighborhood. Last year 

 we took up from those shells, without planting any oysters on 

 them a little over 40,000 bushels of as fine oysters as you ever 

 saw in your life, and I think there are quite as many left on that 

 ground. I say this to give you a little idea of how rapidly 

 oysters will grow. If they would only plant, as Mr. Mather 

 says, the proper shell or material at the proper time, that is all 

 that is necessary. The time oysters spawn is usually in June or 

 July, varying according to the warmness of the atmosphere and 

 the condition of the water. Those are the months that they 

 spawn, and at the time that the oysters are ripe throw over your 

 old oyster shells and try and haive no fungus or vegetable matter 

 on them and the spat adheres to those oyster shells and you have 

 no diiEficulty in getting more oysters than you can handle. Just 

 take oyster shells and scatter them and you will find oysters 

 enough to re-supply the whole territory. I have done that on 

 the Delaware and also on the Baltimore, but in Chesapeake bay 

 we have no right to any grounds there, have no title and conse- 

 quently no water. In the Connecticut waters this has been done 

 for the last eight or ten years, so where there were no oysters a 

 few years ago there are millions of bushels. Of the enemy to 

 the oyster there is the starfish ; they come sometimes in myriads 

 and they kill all the oysters, unless they are taken up and re- 

 moved to some other place. There is not the slightest trouble 

 in the world to replenish our oyster product on this coast or any 

 other section of the country where 3'ou have warm weather in 

 June or July. 



Mr. Mather. — From Mr. Booth's remarks it may be inferred 

 that our mode of artificial hatching is not adapted to practical 

 work. We think that it is. The method which he speaks of is 

 a very old one and often is all that is sufficient, but there are 

 years when the oystermen will tell you "'there is no set," mean- 

 ing that the young failed to hatch or to catch on to something 

 after hatching. Often a heavy rain kills the swimming oysters, 

 or there may be currents which take the eggs to sea. It will 

 readily be seen that the conditions must all be favorable in 



