544 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



coast with great success, the advantage being that not often more than one or two oysters would 

 be attached, and therefore the evil of buuchiness is avoided. ''On the Poquonock River, near 

 Groton, white birch bushes are stuck in the river mud about spawning time, in 14 or 15 feet ot 

 water at low tide. To these the spat adheres in great quantities. They are left undisturbed 

 eighteen mouths, by which time the set becomes good sized seed. * * * The average yield is 

 about 5 bushels to the bush. The grounds are so soft and muddy that no other method is feasible, 

 About 50 acres [1881] are under this kind of cultivation, and the area is rapidly extending. The 

 bushes are grappled out of the mud by derricks." 



One of my correspondents in Long Island suggests inclosing small beds of oysters, just before 

 spawning, by a high board fence, "with plenty of shells or scraps inside to catch the spawn, which 

 thus could not float away." This idea is substantially followed in France, where stakes of wood 

 are driven into the bottom in a circle around a pyramid of oysters placed on stones in the center; 

 and on the He de Re dikes are built of open stone work, so as to divide the bottom into beds, each 

 of which is owned by a private proprietor; other stone partitions or walls are run across, and upon 

 these stones the spawn fastens. Experiments have been made by Mr. John A. Ryder, of the U. S. 

 Fish Commission toward artificial propagation of oysters in Chesapeake waters after a similar 

 process, and have met with success * ; but as yet no practical trial of it has been made 01, a com- 

 mercial basis, of which any report has been made public. 



The mere manner of spreading the shells is also found to be important. The proper method 

 is to take them from the large scow or sloop which has brought them ashore, in small boat-loads. 

 Having anchored the skiff, the shells are then flirted broadcast in all directions by the shovelful. 

 The next boat-load is anchored a little farther on, and the process repeated. Thus a thin and evenly 

 distributed layer is spread over the whole ground. Just how many bushels a man will place on 

 an acre depends upon both his means and his judgment. If he is shelling entirely new ground he 

 will spread more than he would upon an area already improved, but I suppose 250 bushels to the 

 acre might be considered an average quantity. 



By testing early in the fall the planter can tell whether his stools have caught any or much of 

 the desired spawn. The young oysters will appear as minute flakes, easily detected by the expe- 

 rienced eye, attached to all parts of the old shell. If he has got no set whatever he considers his 

 investment a total loss, since by the next season the bed of shells will have become so dirty that 

 the spawn will not take hold if it comes that way. Supposing, on the contrary, that young oys- 

 ters are found attached in millions, as often happens, crowding upon each old shell over the whole 

 20 acres ; this is a good promise, but the planter's anxieties have just begun. The infant mollusk, 

 when first it takes hold upon the stool, the merest speck upon the surface of the white shell, is 

 exceedingly tender. The chances in its favor in the race against its numberless adversaries are 

 extremely few. The longer it lives the better are its chances, but the tender age lasts all through 

 the autumn and until it has attained the size of a quarter dollar piece ; after that it will withstand 

 ordinary discouragements. It often happens, therefore, that the "splendid set" proves a delusion, 

 and Christmas sees the boasted bed a barren waste. "I reckon' I had what 'ud a' made more 'n 

 10 bushels on that ground last fall, and now there's nary an oyster left worth speakiu' on." That 

 is a tune you hear sung over and over. 



The vicissitudes through which the young colony must pass are many and trying. On the 

 coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island the autumn gales are often exceedingly destructive, uot 

 only killing small oysters but obliterating boundaries and sweeping away old beds. Some parts 



* Further experiments liavr since been very successfully made, by the U. S. Fish Commission at the Wood!s Holl 

 Station and elsewhere, accounts of which are given in the Bulletins and Reports siuco 1883. 



