io6 Our Food Mollusks 



waters. Laws were passed giving citizens rights to pri- 

 vate holdings, and the planting industry was established. 

 The second reason for the decline of seed transportation 

 from the South was that northern oystermen learned to 

 supply their own needs, and even, finally, to produce more 

 seed at home than they required, thus allowing them to 

 export to Europe and to transport to the Pacific coast. 

 This was accomplished when certain companies and in- 

 dividuals gave up oyster planting for collecting alone. 

 As on all oyster coasts, there are several specially favored 

 localities in Long Island Sound where young oysters 

 may be collected in great numbers. In such places avail- 

 able bottoms are utilized for obtaining the young on col- 

 lectors, and the material so gathered is sold to planters. 

 Much seed is also taken from natural beds. 



This business of collecting and selling seed in northern 

 waters is sometimes remunerative, but it is precarious, be- 

 cause the set is irregular and beyond control. The total 

 number of oysters in Long Island Sound has been increas- 

 ing rapidly for many years, but there has not been a pro- 

 portionate increase in the set of young. During the sum- 

 mer and fall of 1899 there occurred a very profuse and 

 long continued set of spat. This year is still spoken of 

 as " the year of the great set." Attachment was not con- 

 fined to the vicinity of natural beds, but occurred in deep 

 water as well. The phenomenon was so general that the 

 price of seed oysters became very low. The industry as a 

 whole was greatly benefited by the condition, but dealers 

 in seed made less from it than did the planters. 



No marked changes in natural conditions were ob- 

 served during the next year, but they must have ex- 

 isted, for the spawning season was a failure. Hopes for 

 the following season, also, were not realized. Up to this 



