CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



to market, it being a rule of the company to wait 

 till they can obtain the highest possible price for 

 their goods. Only a certain quantity is dredged 

 each day the sales being regulated by the state 

 of the market. Great care is required in breeding 

 oysters ; the artificial layings at Whitstable are 

 therefore under constant inspection, the different 

 beds being turned over from time to time, in order 

 to the removal of dead or diseased ' natives,' like- 

 wise for the capture and removal of some of the 

 numerous enemies of the mollusc which are always 

 to be found haunting the different beds. 



The figures connected with oyster-farming as 

 carried on at Whitstable are exceedingly interest- 

 ing. The animal yields its spat, or young, in 

 very large quantities indeed, it would require 

 to be very prolific, as the conditions which 

 insure a healthy growth to the animal are often 

 lacking. It is essential that young oysters 

 should begin life on a rocky or shelly bottom, 

 otherwise, they perish at once. Spat from 

 natural beds is often carried by the combined 

 influence of the winds and waves to a great 

 distance from the parent scalp, where it may 

 perish from falling on a muddy bottom, or under 

 more genial circumstances may form the nucleus 

 of a new bed. Some naturalists affirm that each 

 oyster yields in its season more than one million 

 of young, and that the animal begins to be re- 

 productive at the age of four years. The breeding 

 power of the oyster has perhaps been exagger- 

 ated, but to those who can be contented with 

 approximate figures, we may state that a bushel 

 measure is estimated to contain 25,000 infant 

 oysters that is, oysters that have not been long 

 ' spatted ;' in the second year of its age the oyster, 

 then known technically as brood, has attained 

 such a size that only about 6400 can be contained 

 in the bushel ; next year, as ware, the same 

 measure holds 2400 ; and in its fourth year, when 

 supposed to be full grown, the quantity contained 

 in the bushel is about 1600 : so that a bushel of 

 spat, if it can be so grown and fattened as to reach 

 the market at its maturity, will yield a very hand- 

 some profit to the oyster-farmer. The men at 

 Whitstable earn excellent wages on their own 

 oyster-farm, most of them on the average taking 

 a hundred pounds a year out of the company ; and 

 many of them aid their income by acting as pilots, 

 by going out to the coast-fisheries, and by gathering 

 young oysters on the neighbouring free grounds, 

 which they sell to their own company. About 

 Whitstable and Faversham, the oyster-grounds 

 occupy a space of nearly twenty-seven square 

 miles ; and it has been computed that ^160,000 

 per annum has been paid as wages to the men 

 connected with the various companies. The 

 Whitstable oyster-layings are managed by a 'jury' 

 of twelve men, who are elected by their fellows, 

 and it is an article in the constitution of the 

 company that no member can be elected into it 

 he must be born in it so that sons succeed 

 their fathers as workers and shareholders. 



Ireland was at one time famous for its pro- 

 ductive oyster-beds natural scalps of great 

 value. Now, Ireland is taking to ' oyster-culture,' 

 as England and France have done. The Car- 

 lingford, Foyle, and Swilly oysters belong almost 

 as much to the past as the fossil gryphaea 

 the first true oyster of geologists. That un- 

 quenchable greed for the golden egg, which seems 



714 



to be the bane of all kinds of fisheries, led in 

 Ireland, as in France, to the killing of the bird 

 that laid it. At one time, fine oysters were plenti- 

 ful and cheap in Dublin and at other places in 

 Ireland, where the ' Poldoodies of Burran ' were, 

 like the ' natives ' in London or the whiskered 

 ' Pandores ' of Prestonpans, a household word 

 of the oyster-taverns. Brood-oysters were a 

 few years ago extensively sold in Ireland by 

 stupid men anxious for a little ready-money. 

 As much as ^8000 was paid for brood at 

 Arklow by French and English oyster-growers. 

 Attempts at oyster-culture are being success- 

 fully made in various parts of the Irish coast, 

 and some portions of the sea-board of the 

 Emerald Isle are well adapted for the formation of 

 oyster-beds. In Clew and Newport bays, there 

 are fifty or sixty miles of sea-bottom admirably 

 adapted for oyster-farms. 



In France, where, about forty years ago, there 

 was a very productive series of natural oyster- 

 scalps, experience has shewn the same results 

 as in Great Britain and Ireland. So soon as easy 

 means of transport began to be common, the 

 oyster-beds were ' dredged to death,' so as to aug- 

 ment the sales of the day the men taking no 

 thought for the morrow. What they looked to 

 was the ready-money produced by the immediate 

 sales. From greed of gain, the natural beds of 

 St Brieuc, Rochelle, Marennes, and other places, 

 all became barren. In time the industry of oyster- 

 cultivation was renewed by means of a cunning, 

 artificial system of saving the spat. Great arti- 

 ficial beds at various places on the coast, and 

 model farms, were constructed at the expense of 

 the nation, so that those who cared to engage in 

 the enterprise might be taught the best methods 

 of oyster-farming. The most prominent of the 

 French artificial oyster-beds are those of Arcachon, 

 Marennes, and the He de R; there are many 

 others, but these are the most celebrated. The 

 artificial method of gathering the spat, now preva- 

 lent in France, was accidentally discovered by 

 M. Bceuf of the He de Re, who found a large 

 quantity of small oysters adhering to some stones 

 on the fore-shore the seed having doubtless 

 floated in to the island from some natural oyster- 

 scalp. An immense quantity of oysters is required 

 annually by the cafe's of Paris, and the cities of 

 the provinces never can obtain as many as they 

 require. Artificial oyster-culture has been rather 

 precarious during late years, in consequence of 

 the irregular fall of the spat, but it is certain that 

 large supplies continue to reach the markets, and 

 that a great sum of money is yearly paid for this 

 luxury of the table. 



In America, the natural oyster-beds are of 

 gigantic extent ; some of them extending (as on the 

 Virginia sea-board) to over a million of acres, and 

 being free to all comers, give employment to thou- 

 sands of industrious persons in dredging, canning, 

 and carrying the oysters. 'Canned' oysters are 

 known far and wide throughout the United States 

 and Canada, hundreds of thousands of bushels 

 being made up annually in small tins for convey- 

 ance by water or railway to the most distar 

 places. Even with all its natural oyster-wealth, 

 note of alarm is being sounded by prudent people, 

 who are of opinion that if dredging is continued 

 for a few years longer on the same extensive scale 

 as at present, the natural economy of the scalj 



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