146 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES. 



from the rivers, and the oysters are not usually so valuable as those 

 from the west side of the Mississippi Eiver. In 1897 there were from 

 Louisiana 34 sailboats, worth $14,640, with 123 men, engaged in taking 

 oysters from these reefs for the New Orleans market, and their catch, 

 amounting to 55,860 barrels, was landed at Old Basin and sold for 

 $40,027. These men live mainly in Kew Orleans, and the oysters are 

 carried from the reefs directly to the Kew Orleans market. 



In Plaquemines Parish, on the east side of the Mississippi Eiver, there 

 is an extensive oyster-plantiug industry. The locality in which this is 

 carried on is known generally as Salt Works, and includes Yankee 

 Bayou, Scobels Bay, Bokeskie Bayou, Quarantine Bay, Whale Bay, etc. 

 In that vicinity there are 65 camps with 186 oystermen, using 102 sail- 

 boats, worth $22,780. They obtain oysters from Louisiana marshes and 

 from the reefs west of the Mississippi Eiver, and bed them on grounds 

 preempted in accordance with the State law. After remaining 6 or 8 

 months or longer these oysters are taken up and sold in New Orleans. 

 In 1897 the sales from the Salt Works amounted to 34,152 barrels, for 

 which the oystermen received $52,980. Most of these oysters are 

 delivered at the French Market lugger landing in New Orleans. 



The finest oysters in Louisiana are from the Bayou Cook section, 

 under that name being included nearly all the waters of the western 

 half of Plaquemines Parish, and especially Bayou Chute, Grand Bayou, 

 Bay Adam, Bayou Fontenal, Bayou des Huitres, and the adjacent 

 bayous. These oysters are the result of the most careful system of 

 individual ostreiculture along the Gulf coast. The natural reefs in the 

 Bayou Cook section were exhausted about thirty years ago, and the 

 colony of Austrians settled there have since depended on gathering 

 oysters in Lake Barre, Timbalier Bay, and other waters of southern 

 Louisiana during the sjjringand planting them in Bayou Cook and the 

 adjacent waters, where they remain until the following season, acquir- 

 ing in the meantime the peculiar flavor which distinguishes the oysters 

 from that locality. The oystermen of Bayou Cook are among the most 

 enterprising and painstaking of the fishermen on the Gulf coast, and 

 there is no class along that coast better equipped for their work or more 

 successful in its j)rosecution. They live in small camps adjacent to 

 their bedding- grounds, these camps being constructed of boards or 

 palmettoes raised 10 or 15 feet above the marsh. In 1897 there were 

 302 persons engaged in the Bayou Cook oyster industry, living in 86 

 camps, and using 122 sailboats worth $33,675, and 244 rowboats worth 

 $10 or $12 each. The oysters marketed during that season amounted 

 to 62,184 barrels, for which $110,627 was received. 



The waters of Jefferson Parish produced large quantities of oysters 

 prior to 1893, but the severe storm in September of that year destroyed 

 most of the reefs as well as the greater portion of the boats and appa- 

 ratus for carrying on the fisheries. The oysters being situated in shoal 

 water were washed in windrows and covered up by sand. These reefs 

 are gradually recovering from the effect of that storm, but most of the 



