30 



certainly know of no place where the natural conditions 

 offered are any better for such a i)roject than those of 

 St, Jerome's Creek. The bottom would of course have 

 to undergo such preparation as would insure to it solid- 

 ity, and it might be well to imitate the flat ridge-like 

 character of the bank as shown in Fig. 3. The long 

 axis of the beds should probably lie transversely to the 

 direction in which the tide ebbs and flows in and out of 

 the creeks, as appears to be the case in all the banks 

 examined. The next thing to do would be to colonize 

 these banks with oysters stuck thickly into the bottom, 

 hinge downw^ards, imitating the position of the animals 

 in the natural banks. The cost of an experimental bank 

 established as I have suggested, need not be much, as 

 the experiment could be tried as successfully on a limited 

 scale as upon a more extensive one. 



WHY DREDGING INJURES THE BEDS. 



Dredging, inasmuch as it destroys the arrangement of 

 the oysters of the banks, tends to interfere with the fe- 

 cundity of the latter. Carry on dredging operations on 

 any given bank long enough to rob it both of its natural 

 growth of adult oysters and in part of its natural grow^th 

 of spat, it would be strange indeed if it did not cease to 

 be productive. As we had occasion to remark above, 

 that the uppermost tier or last generation of oysters was 

 the one which afforded for the most part the points of 

 attachment for the young fry, it is clear that the banks 

 are annually robbed of vast numbers of possible oysters. 

 True, the dead shells which are or ought to be allowed 

 to remain on the beds, lying about amongst the living 

 individuals also afford attachment for the young, but 

 perhaps not more liberally than the living shells. 



Another reason why dredging, especially when carried 

 to excess, tends to destroy the banks, as insisted upon 

 by Mobius and others, is the removal by that means of 

 too large a proportion of germ-producing adults. It is 

 in this way that the power of the beds to regain their 



