NEW HAMPSHIRE AND ITS FISHERIES. 107 



raking every clay, the average take being about five bushels to the man. They used not only tongs 

 and rakes, but used also dredges. In the winter, also, they would cut long holes in the ice, and 

 dredge the beds by horse-power, stripping them completely. It was seen that this rash arid 

 wholesale destruction would speedily exterminate the mollusks, and laws were passed by the State 

 forbidding the use of the dredge under all circumstances, making the months of June, July, and 

 August 'close time,' and forbidding fishing through the ice at any time. The last regulation was 

 the greatest help of all, for the ice-rakers would not throw back the debris of dead shells, but pile 

 it oil the ice, where the hundreds of young oysters attached to it would freeze to death. But these 

 beneficent restrictions came too late, and the business of oystering has steadily declined, until now 

 only two or three boats keep up a desultory search for profitable beds, and a bushel and a half a 

 day is considered good work for each man. Only seven or eight persons were engaged during the 

 summer of 1879, and these not all of their time. All unite in ascribing the decline of the industry 

 to over-raking of the beds, and feel disposed to pray for a law forbidding any raking whatever 

 during several years, in order to give the oysters a chance to recuperate their depleted ranks. 

 The beds, as I have said, are all in Great Bay. They occupy the channels at various points, and are 

 each of considerable extent. There are perhaps a dozen well-known localities or clusters of beds. 

 These are mainly situated in Greenland Bay, near Nannie's Island, along the Stratham Channel, 

 up Exeter River to some distance beyond the bridge of the Concord Railroad, in the Little Channel 

 near by, and up Lamprey and Durham Rivers. The chief raking now is done oft' Nannie's Island. 

 The average of the water on the beds is hardly more than 10 feet deep, and it is pretty fresh. The 

 tide- way, as a rule, is strong, and the bottom tough, clayey inud. The oysters are very large. I 

 heard of specimens 15 inches long, and those of 9 and 10 are common. One man told me of a 

 single specimen procured in 1877 which weighed 3 pounds 1 ounce in the shell, the fleshy part alone 

 weighing 1 pound 1 ounce. These large ones, however, all have the appearance of extreme age, 

 and are heavy, rough, sponge-eaten, and generally dead, though the ligament still holds the two 

 valves of the shell together. In taste, this oyster is flat and rather insipid, which is laid to the too 

 great freshness of the water. It takes a large quantity of them to ' open' a gallon of solid meat, a 

 bushel not yielding more than two to two and a half quarts. As a consequence, there has not been 

 a very great demand for them, though all that can be got now are readily disposed of. Formerly 

 the price was $1 a bushel in New Market, where they were chiefly bought; but in 1879, 80 cents was 

 the price. No culture of these or of imported oysters has ever been tried here, and the chances are 

 against success." 



In New Hampshire there are three wholesale oyster dealers; and the business of those dealers, 

 together with the oyster business in other parts of the State, is summed up by Mr. Ingersoll as 

 follows : 



Number of wholesale dealers 3 



Number of men fishing in summer for natives 6 



Number of vessels and sail-boats engaged 5 



Value of same $300 



Number of restaurant servants 6 



Annual earnings of same $2,500 



Total number of persons supported 25 



Annual sales of 



I. Native oysters bushels.. 1,000 



Value of same $800 



II. Chesapeake "plants" bushels.. 7,000 



Value of same '. $7,000 



III. Fancy stock bushels.. 800 



Value of same $1,000 



IV. Value of Norfolk "opened stock" $1,000 



Total value of oysters sold annually .$9. HOO 



