72 SHELL-FISH COMMISSIONERS’ REPORT. [Jan., 
have been able to obtain more satisfactory information 
about this and its neighboring beds than about those 
which are further west. They believe that with this bed 
certainly, and with the others probably, the best method 
of management is that last above mentioned, saving the 
provision for a close time. No one questions the fact 
that dredging, scraping, and raking, properly carried on 
over the beds, just before and at the time of spawning, 
dissipates the slime that accumulates on the beds during 
the winter months, turns over and cleanses the cultch, and 
fits it for the reception of the floating spat. Where a bed 
has not been so stirred up the spat generally fails to set; 
and it is a fact of common occurrence, as before stated, 
that beds which have been well worked over during the 
spring at one end are found covered with spat, while the 
neglected end is entirely bare. Articles lost overboard in 
the spring and falling upon a neglected bed have been 
found shortly afterwards covered with young oysters, 
while the cultch brought up with them showed nothing but 
slime. Hence the stirring up which the beds get when 
dredged for seed, before and during the time of spawning, 
is a prime necessity; and any law for a close time during 
the entire, or perhaps any, portion of this season would be 
evidently unwise. Spawning takes place at different times 
in July and August. By the first of September, therefore, 
there is no longer any occasion for turning over the cultch. 
Spat floats about in great abundance at spawning time, 
especially during the last two weeks of August, and it sets 
upon the cultch wherever the dredge has recently passed. 
So that, notwithstanding that the dredging and spawning 
proceed together and a large amount of spat is dredged up 
and killed or carried away on the seed and cultch, still at 
the end of the spawning season a good set is generally 
found all over the bed. It seems therefore as if a close 
time might now begin and be continued for a few weeks 
at least, for the purpose of giving the young oysters op- 
portunity to harden and grow so that they may bear hand- 
ling and transplanting without injury. They are barely 
visible when five days old; at the end of thirty days they 
