cultivated at Whitstablc, ostrca cilulis. The beds are closed 

 from April to October, and the depth of water over them 

 is about twenty-five feet, with a temperature of i6 D 

 centigrade at the bottom and 24 to 25 at a level of six 

 feet from the top. There is another bed, near Bergen, 

 which is only supplied with sea water at high tide in rough 

 weather, by washing over the rocks which intervene. 



Wherever oyster cultivation is carried on, the great 

 point seems to be that whatever material is used for the 

 spat to settle on, it must be quite clean and free from 

 slime or any impurity, to insure close and steady adhesion. 

 Even glass does not present too smooth or slipper}' a surface. 

 Indeed the oyster seems to be quite indifferent to what 

 material it thrives on so long as it is clean, and some of 

 the illustrations show to what strange things oysters have 

 been found adhering. There was a reference in The Daily 

 Telegraph, 2jth December, 1901, to the old battleships of 

 the Turkish Navy, and it was stated that the dock hands 

 where the vessels are lying, occasionally enjoy a good 

 meal of mussels and oysters taken from the bottoms of 

 those vessels. 



In order to afford fattening for the 

 Fattening Oysters. best oystei ^ thc sojl Qn which they 



lie must be of a particular character, and the water that 

 covers them must be neither too fresh nor too salt, but a 

 due admixture of the two. The Whitstable fisheries have 

 the requisite advantages of both soil and water, and the 

 great superiority of " Royal Whitstable natives " over almost 

 all other oysters is mainly owing to these advantages. The 

 " native " is the most hardy, as well as the best of all 

 oysters, in the opinion of competent judges. It has a hard, 

 symmetrical, pearly shell, whereas many other oysters are 



