336 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



seed; but for shipping in the shell the deep-water seed produces more profit, though of slower 

 growth, the mature stock being single, shapely, and of large size. 



"The practice of catching seed-oysters on shells prevails here with much success, but will be 

 so fully discussed in a future chapter that I refrain from doing more than mention the fact here; 

 and add that Mr. Wheeler Hawley, the largest planter at Bridgeport, believes himself to have 

 been one of the first, if not the first, to adopt this method of oyster culture in Long Island Sound, 

 putting the date of his experiments at 1853. 



"Replying to my questions in regard to methods and cost of following this practice in this 

 harbor, one of the planters informed me that, in his case, he counts expenses per acre in preparation 

 of oyster- bottom as follows: 



500 bushels shells ("stools") at 5 cents 125 00 



50 bushels of "spawners" (unculled) 12 00 



Total cost of seeding 37 00 



"From this he thought he ought to take up 1,000 bushels of seed to the acre of marketable 

 oysters after two years, with a remainder left for the third year. The cost of taking .up would be 

 about 20 cents a bushel. If seed-oysters are bought to be placed upon the ground, from 25 to 60 

 cents a bushel must be paid for them. 



"The total acreage under cultivation at Bridgeport, for which a rental of $2 an acre is paid to 

 the town, is about 110 acres. On this ground there were raised in the winter of 1879-'80 about 

 8,000 bushels, which were mainly sold in the shell to New York buyers, at an average of about 

 $1.12J a bushel. These oysters were large and fat, often opening six quarts to the bushel, as I was 

 informed. In 1857 they brought $12 a barrel. 



"The fleet employed by the oystermen here consists of nine sail-boats, worth, perhaps, $2,500 

 in total; the care of the beds and running of the boats give support to about a dozen families, and 

 occasional wages to others at the height of the season, the pay being about $2 a day. 



"OYSTER BUSINESS AT WESTPORT. Westport is a little harbor on the Saugatuck River, 

 one of the most beautiful of the many charming streams that debouch along this part of the coast. 

 The river has long been celebrated for the abundance, large size, and excellent flavor of its natural 

 oysters. They grew almost continuously, in favorable seasons, from the mouth of the river up 

 to the village bridge, a distance of about 4 miles, and the farmers who lived along the river 

 were accustomed to gather them in any desired quantity, without a thought of exhausting the 

 supply. The depletion came at last, however, and now few marketable oysters, native to the 

 Saugatuck, are ever procured. 



"Some years ago, when attention was first called to the desirability of transplanting oysters 

 and raising them upon artificial beds, the Westport men staked off a large area at the mouth of the 

 Saugatuck. No ground within the river, however, was allowed to be assigned, the town reserving 

 all this as 'common ground,' where seed might be gathered by poor men and everybody, to be 

 sold to the planters. The amount of seed thus procured annually varies greatly with different 

 years. The highest trustworthy estimate given me for any one year (and this not recently) was 

 50,000 bushels. Last year, however, only about 4,000 bushels were caught; half was planted 

 locally and half sold to outside buyers. In midsummer a score or so of men in skiffs may often be 

 seen in the river at once raking seed-oysters, but these work only occasionally, and there are less 

 than a dozen men who really derive their support 'by following the creek' (chiefly oystering) in 

 the whole town. The seed used is between one and three years of age, and it is sold by the skiff- 



