OYSTERS. 383 



companies themselves, has proved of doubtful utility, so far as the 

 oyster-eating public is concerned, as the following sketch of the Whit- 

 stable oyster farms will show. The oyster farm at Whitstable is 

 co-operative in the best sense of the term, and has been in operation 

 for many years. The Company possesses large oyster 'grounds, and a 

 fine fleet of boats kept for the purpose of dredging and planting the 

 beds ; it is established under the Joint Stock Companies Act, but 

 there is no other way of entrance into it but by birth, as none of the 

 free dredgermen of the town can hold shares. When a man dies his 

 interest in the Company dies with him, but his widow, if he leaves 

 one, obtains a pension. The affairs of the Company are managed by 

 twelve directors, who are called " the jury." 



1 ' The layings at Whitstable," to summarise Mr. Bertram, " occupy 

 about a mile and a half square ; and the oyster-beds have been so 

 prosperous as to have obtained the name of the ' happy fishing 

 grounds.' Whitstable lies in a sandy bay, formed by a small branch 

 of the Medway, which separates the Isle of Sheppey from the main- 

 land. Throughout this bay, from the town of Whitstable at its 

 eastern extremity to the old town of Faversham, which lies several 

 miles inland, the whole of the estuary is occupied by oyster farms, on 

 which the maritime population, to the extent of three thousand people 

 and upwards, is occupied ; the sum ' paid for labour by the various 

 companies being set down at 160,000 per annum, besides the em- 

 ployment given at Whitstable in building and repairing boats, dredges 

 and other requisites for the oyster-fishing. The business of the 

 various companies is to feed oysters for the London and other markets, 

 to protect the spawn or floatsome, as the dredgers call it, which is 

 emitted on their own beds, and to furnish, by purchase or otherwise, 

 the new brood necessary to supply the beds which have been taken 

 up for consumption." 



We have hinted above that in oyster, as in other fisheries, a wasteful 

 spirit of extravagance has hitherto prevailed. It appears, however, 

 that no rule can be laid down even as to the particular year in which 

 the oysters will spawn, much less where it will be carried to ; for, 

 although the artificial contrivances adopted by Sergius Grata for saving 

 the spawn are perfectly well known to the parties interested here, they 

 have not hitherto been imitated ; the practice of the companies and 

 private owners of oyster-layers being to purchase their young brood 



