CHAP. viii. J AT WHITSTABLE. 367 



extent of the public and other oyster-ground at Whitstable 

 is about twenty-seven square miles. 



The oyster-farm of Whitstable is a co-operation in the 

 best sense of- the term, and has been in existence for a long 

 period. The layings at Whitstable occupy about a mile 

 and a half square, and the oyster-beds there have been so very 

 prosperous as to have attained the name of the " happy fishing- 

 grounds." At Whitstable, Faversham, and adjoining grounds, 

 not counting a large surface granted to a newly-formed com- 

 pany, a space of twenty-seven square miles, as I have men- 

 tioned above, is taken up in oyster-farms, and the industry 

 carried on in this space of ground involves the annual earn- 

 ing and expenditure of a very large sum of money. Over 

 3000 people are employed in the various industries con- 

 nected with the fishery, who earn capital wages all the year 

 round the sum paid for labour by the different companies 

 being set down at over 160,000 per annum ; and in addition 

 to this expenditure for wages, there is likewise a large sum 

 of money annually expended for the repairing and purchasing 

 of boats, sails, dredges, and other implements used in oyster- 

 fishing. At Whitstable the course of work is as follows : The 

 business of the company is to feed oysters for the London and 

 other markets ; for this purpose they buy brood or spat, and 

 lay it down in their beds to grow. When the company's own 

 oysters produce a spat that is, when the spawn, or " floatsome " 

 as the dredgers call it, emitted from their own beds falls upon 

 their own ground it is of great benefit to them, as it saves 

 purchases of brood to the extent of what has fallen ; but this 

 falling of the spat is in a great degree accidental, for no rule 

 can be laid down as to whether the oysters will spawn in any 

 particular year, or where the spawn may be carried to. No 

 artificial contrivances of the kind known in France have yet 

 been used at Whitstable for the saving of the spawn. I will 

 now explain, before going further, the ratio of oyster-growth. 



