532 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



storms and great freshets in July and August, on the other hand, produce thin and poor oysters, 

 which will not bring a good price. 



Early in the spring, however, before the planting of new seed begins, the oysterinen of this 

 district hire help to carry on another feature of their business, the " shifting." As soon as the 

 weather gets fairly settled the " natives," intended to be sent to market the following fall, are 

 taken up from the place where they lie, culled over, and cleaned, if needful, and relaid more thinly 

 on a new bed. Usually this is a movement from a soft to a harder bottom, and sometimes to a 

 region of fresher water. At Perth Amboy, however, oysters shifted are placed farther down the bay. 

 It operates advantageously in two ways: by repressing the tendency to spawn, which is undesirable, 

 and by giving them the benefit of a change of water and food. Moreover, on the sand they will 

 tend to grow round and shapely beyond their ability to do so when crowded in the mud, while the 

 fresher water will make them fatter. The actual result, nevertheless, is sometimes disappointing, 

 particularly if there be no current over the new bed to bring a steady supply of fresh water. 



The man who has only a few hundred bushels will do this " shifting," as it is termed, himself; 

 but for the large planters it is usually done by a contractor, either for a lump sum or for an amount 

 of pay based upon an estimate -of the quantity, or at the rate of 10 to 15 cents per bushel, accord- 

 ing to the density of the oyster-beds, and hence the time to be consumed. In either case the cost 

 is about the same. One gentleman told me he paid $1,300 to have 11,000 bushels shifted under the 

 first named arrangement. While this is going on the southern cargoes are being laid upon the 

 beds, and at Keyport a score or more of negroes from Norfolk annually appear as laborers, return- 

 ing, at the end of the work, to their homes. 



The growth of oysters transplanted to these New York Bay waters is reasonably rapid, though 

 not as fast as occurs in the Great South Bay of Long Island. The usual expectation is to leave 

 the beds undisturbed for three years, then shift in the spring and market in the fall. As planting 

 of seed occurs both spring and fall, the crop of every year is thus the first of a series of six. All 

 "naturals," that is, local oysters, planted will outgrow other seed, doubling in size in a single 

 season. The oysters from the sound, however, have been used largely for European trade for the 

 last two or three years, and have acquired a high reputation. These do not require to lie three 

 years, since they are wanted of small size. 



Most of the planters here, as on Long Island and in the East River, are themselves merchants 

 of shell fish in New York, or in partnership with merchants. 



THE SOUTH SHORE OF LONG ISLAND. On the south shore of Long Island oyster planting 

 is carried on very extensively, and is subdivided into a great number of small holdings. At the 

 western end of Long Island Sound is a series of interlacing channels, through a great marshy 

 lagoon, protected outwardly by Longbeach from the Atlantic, and separated from Hempstead Bay, 

 east, by large islands. This confusing net-work of shallow, tidal creeks, ramifying in all directions 

 through an immense expanse of sedge, lies on the eastern side of the township of Eockaway. 

 West of the town spread the more open waters of Jamaica Bay. In both these waters oysters 

 are grown in great quantities, and as every village, beach, inlet, and channel in the whole region 

 has the name Rockaway attached to it in some shape, it is not surprising that these oysters should 

 take the universal name, too, in the New York markets, whither they all tend. Under closely 

 protective local laws, nearly every family in the towu is engaged in oystering. Rockaway men 

 get their seed from Brookhaven and Newark Bay, but prefer East Eiver seed to any other, and 

 use the largest quantity of it. It is brought to them in sloops. Rockaway itself owns few large 

 sail-boats; its channels are too shallow and devious to admit of easy navigation, but every man 

 has a skiff, and all the planters flat planting-boats. Virginia oysters have been tried, but now 



