THE OYSTER INDUSTRY. 517 



Port Chester, and City Island, on the north shore, while the region about Great Neck was the 

 center of the south-shore interest. On Long Island, however, oysters grew in great abundance 

 in every bay and inlet as far east as Port Jefferson, beyond which the bold coast of shifting sand 

 is unsuitable, until the long-ago exterminated colonies inside of Orient Point, at the eastern end, 

 were reached. From Port Jefferson westward a good many native oysters are still taken to market, 

 and once in a while a deposit is found which has lain undisturbed long enough to bring to salable 

 maturity a considerable q'uantity ; yet no one makes much account of these, and the natural beds 

 are devoted almost wholly to seed-producing. Harlem River and Gowanus Bay were both noted 

 in primitive times for the excellence of their oysters.* 



SOUTH SIDE OF LONG ISLAND, NEW YOKK. A similar fate has overtaken the once highly- 

 productive grounds in the Great South Bay, on the southern shore of Long Island. Originally 

 oysters in this sound were confined almost wholly between Smith's Point and Fire Island practi- 

 cally to the waters east of Blue Point, known as Brookhaven Bay. This was the home of the 

 fatuous celebrity, the Blue Point oyster, which was among the earliest to come to New York mar- 

 kets. The present oyster of this brand is small and round, but the old "Blue Points," cherished 

 by the Dutch burghers and peak-hatted sons of the Hamptons, who toasted the king long before 

 our Revolution was thought of, was of the large, crooked, heavy-shelled, elongated kind with 

 which one becomes familiar all along the coast in examining relics of the natural beds. Now and 

 then, a few years ago, one of these aboriginal oysters, of which two dozen made a sufficient arm- 

 ful, was dragged up and excited the curiosity of every one; but the time has gone by when any 

 more of theso monsters may be expected. As early as 1679, according to Watson's Annals, this 

 bay had become the scene of an extensive industry. In 1853 the New York Herald reported that 

 the value of all the Blue Point oysters, by which name the Great South Bay oysters generally 

 were meant, did not exceed yearly $200,000. " They are sold for an average of ten shillings ($1.25) 

 a hundred from the beds ; but, as they are scarce and have a good reputation, they sell at a con- 

 siderable advance upon this price when brought to market. At one period, when they might be 

 regarded as in their prime, they attained a remarkable size ; but now their proportions, as well as 

 their numbers, have been greatly reduced." The people did not take alarm soon enough. When, 

 a few years later, they did become frightened at the threatened extirpation of their resources, their 

 efforts were all but too late to save the beds from total annihilation. As it is, only transplanted 

 oysters are now sent to market from that district. Between Fire Island and New York Bay no 

 natural beds of any consequence ever grew, so far as we know, but large interests in planting 

 have arisen. Inside New York Bay, however, the oysters formed a very important item in 

 enumerating the advantages of the new country. 



How greatly this molluscan abundance was valued by the first colonists is plainly shown in 

 .the early descriptions of the country. In 1621 "very large oifters" were too common at "Nieuw 

 Amsterdam" to find a market, everybody being able to supply themselves without charge. "Oys- 

 ters are very plenty in many places," asserted the traveler Von der Douk in 1641. " Some of 

 these are like the Colchester oysters, and are fit to be eaten raw ; others are very large, wherein 

 pearls are frequently found, but as they are of a brownish color they are not valuable. The price 

 for oysters is usually from 8 to 10 stivers per hundred." The inference is, that every man could 

 easily gather for himself all he wanted. That a few years of this sort of thing greatly enhanced 

 their value, however, is shown by the fact that in 1658 the Dutch council, in making an oHin- 



*A list arid description of the natural beds, at present recognized by law in the waters of the State of Connecti- 

 cut, is given in the third annual report (184) of the shell-fish commissioners of that State. The areas, eight in 

 number, aggregate nearly 5,500 acres, and none of any note lie east of Milford. 



