THE OYSTER. 



129 



large number of acres now neglected, it is believed will, 

 at no far distant day, become valuable for cultivation. 



" The efforts made to grow oysters on muddy bot- 

 toms in the Poquonock River, near Groton, to which 

 reference was made in the last year's report, have 

 been uniformly successful, as many as a thousand 

 bushels of superior oysters having been obtained from 

 one acre. No particular skill is required in carrying 

 on similar experiments, and it is probable that the 

 method will be generally followed throughout the 

 State, where similar bottoms are found. 



" On the Poquonock, River near Groton, white birch 

 bushes are stuck in the river mud, about spawning 

 time, in fourteen or fifteen feet of water at low tide. 

 To these the spat adheres in great quantities. They 

 are left undisturbed eighteen months, by which time 

 the set becomes good-sized seed. On one bush, which 

 was four inches through at the butt, twenty-five bushels 

 of oysters were found, seven of which were large 

 enough for market. The average yield is about five 

 bushels to the bush. The grounds are so soft and 

 muddy that no other method is feasible. About fifty 

 acres are under this kind of cultivation, and the area 

 is rapidly extending. The bushes are grappled out of 

 the mud by derricks. The oysters are of excellent 

 flavor, and the business is profitable." 



Besides such simple but very effective devices for 

 collecting spat, there have been invented in France a 

 number of complicated mechanical devices for use 

 under peculiar circumstances. The price of oysters 



