OYSTER-BEDS OF LOUISIANA. 77 



extent that has induced some of the oysterrnen to resort to other 

 waters. In Terrebonne Bay there is probably as yet no great decrease, 

 but between Terrebonne Bay and Atchafalaya Bay many of the more 

 limited beds have been exterminated or reduced to a condition where 

 it is unprofitable to work them; other places are still productive, but 

 not to the same extent as formerly. 



OYSTER-PLANTING IN ST. BERNARD PARISH. 



Notwithstanding the extent of the oyster business in the parish of 

 St. Bernard, no oyster-planting is carried on there, nor, apparently, has 

 any effort been made in that direction. The oysterrnen working on the 

 natural reefs habitually set apart certain circumscribed areas of hard 

 bottom upon which they bed their oysters until they have caught 

 enough to make a cargo. Toward the end of the season, when many 

 of the beds become more or less depleted by the drain which the steady 

 prosecution of the industry entails, it frequently requires as long as 

 fifteen days for the crew of a vessel to catch a full load. Under such 

 circumstances oysters taken during the earlier part of the trip would 

 spoil before the boat was ready to sail, and to avoid this it is customary 

 to "bed" the culled oysters every few days in a place whence they can 

 be conveniently removed when the cargo is completed. The oysters 

 are bedded very thickly on these grounds — often, it is said, to a depth 

 of a foot — so as to allow of their recovery with a minimum expenditure 

 of labor when the load is completed, and were this done on soft bottom 

 the oysters beneath would be driven into the mud and suffocated; and 

 for this reason the beds are almost invariably placed upon the reefs, 

 which often afford the only hard bottom to be had. The beds are 

 small — averaging, perhaps, about 50 feet square — and are usually 

 marked and sometimes inclosed by stakes to keep off the drumfish, 

 which often prove destructive. For the same purpose many of the 

 beds are surrounded with old seines, which prove effectual barriers, or 

 by lines with pieces of rag attached, which scare the fish away. 



A few of the oysterrnen fishing in the Salter water at the eastern end 

 of the parish sometimes set down their catch in the fresher water near 

 Three-mile Bayou to " fatten," as they say, but in reality to undergo a 

 process of bloating, due to the osmotic interchange of fluids within 

 and without the tissues. The reverse process has been occasionally 

 practiced at times when the discharge of fresh water through Lake 

 Pontchartrain and the Pearl River has been of sufficient volume to 

 reduce the salinity over the oyster-beds and render the oysters too 

 insipid for market. By transplanting the oysters for a short period to 

 the denser water of Chandeleur Sound it was found possible to improve 

 the flavor to an extent which rendered the oysters salable. Certain 

 of the oysterrnen residing on the shores of Mississippi Sound some- 

 times find no immediate market for their catch, and by bedding the 

 oysters temporarily near their residences where they can not be stolen, 

 are able to wait until the market improves and better prices prevail. 



