CULTIVATION OF ttAKIXK AM) FRESH-W A.TEK WIMA1.S IN JAPAN. 28] 



the other, the bamboo branches being made li> interlock. The "toyas"are left in 

 this condition exactly one year, when they must give place to the next new sot. 



The oysters that are now in their second year and are of a fair size are struck 

 off the bamboo collectors, which are rotten by this time, and are then placed in the 

 living ground (fig. '_'. pi. i.\. right side), where they lie directly on the hard and 

 gravelly bottom. They are left here until the next year, although they are given 

 thorough raking every fortnight or so. By autumn of the third year they are ready 

 for the market. How completely the sea bottom in the inlet of Nihojima has been 

 utilized may he gathered from the accompanying photograph and map. The photo- 

 graph (tie', l. pi. x) was taken at low tide, when the oyster living grounds and 

 "toya" grounds are fully exposed. The map (cut 9) gives an idea as to how this sea 

 bottom has been cut up into lots and leased to different persons. Put this together 

 with the fact which you can gather 



from some of these photographs ^*spfi8fis%5 



( ig. 1, pi. ix and tie'. 1. pi. x), that 

 hills around here are cultivated to 

 the very top — it would be difficult 

 to go beyond this in the utilization 

 of landand water. Hiroshima has 

 perhaps gone ahead of most places 

 in Japan in this respect. 



A rather interesting and sim- 

 ple system of oyster culture has 

 been developed within the last 

 twenty years at the mouth of the 

 Suminouye River, in Ariake Bay, 

 in the prefecture of Saga, Kiushiu. 

 it seems that people here were in 

 the habit of collecting all the natu- 

 ral oysters they could and of pre- 

 serving larger ones among them for 

 a little while on the bottom of the 



SuminOUVe River to be sent later ' IT s — lir " 111 " 1 P lan ot a "toya." Collectors bearing well-grown 

 • . oysters are indicated by the black i>n[. within the two circles of 



to Nagasaki for sale. for some branching collectors. 



reason, in L884 those thus preserved 



were left over winter and it was discovered that by next year they had grown to a 

 large size. This fact was not lost on the sagacious people thereabouts, of whom Mr. 

 Murata, an enthusiastic culturist, seems to have been the head and soul. From this 

 beginning the industry was developed so that L8,330 bushels of oysters, valued at 

 21,181 yen. were produced in L897, and the output has no doubt increased since. The 

 method_ is as follows: Young oysters about an inch or more in length are collected con- 

 stantly from July till March of the next year from stone walls, old shells, etc. All 

 these are placed on oyster beds in the river mouth, and as these small ones maybe 

 choked by being covered up with the silt, they are heaped close together in masses, 

 and are moreover washed and cleaned two or three times in a month, at low tide. In 

 April these oysters are stuck into the mud almost vertically with the. hinge-end below 



