Our Food Mollusks 



lected and reared in ponds in the time of Augustus, for 

 on these vases are designs in perspective, representing 

 oyster ponds and objects used in the capture of oysters. 

 There are also inscriptions that 

 make the meaning of the artist cer- 

 tain. The simple methods of oys- 

 ter culture in use to-day at Lake 

 Fusaro and the Gulf of Tarente 

 are apparently identical with those 

 of the Romans of two thousand 

 years ago. Stakes are driven into 

 the bottom enclosing small rectan- 

 gular spaces. These are connected 

 by means of ropes from which are 

 suspended bundles of twigs. On 

 this brush the swimming young of 

 the oyster attach. They are left 

 in this position to grow to mar- 

 ketable size, or are removed and 

 spread out in wicker baskets, 

 which also are suspended from 

 ropes. As tides are not great, 

 they are seldom exposed. 

 Oyster culture, as it is carried on in various parts of 

 the world to-day, is everywhere essentially the same 

 process, but what may be called modern methods are of 

 independent origin in Europe, in Japan, and in our own 

 country. During the first half of the nineteenth cen- 

 tury, natural beds in Europe and America were still large 

 enough to satisfy the demands of the markets, but in the 

 last fifty years very rapid social changes have occurred, 

 one result being that many of the luxuries of previous 

 times became common necessities, especially in our own 



FIG. 18. Portugese 

 oyster ( O s t r e a 

 augulata). 



