36 REPORT ON OYSTER CULTURE 



Fig. 19. 



detaching any of the produce. The parent oysters, of course, 

 are thickly scattered about and near these collectors. That the 

 principles of cultivation are sound is evident from the long- 

 continued success. If experiments in this country are not suc- 

 cessful it is because the natural conditions are unsuitable, or 

 because the oysterculturist lacks the skill and experience to carry 

 his work to a satisfactory conclusion ; for skill and experience are 

 quite as requisite, if not more so, in the aquae culturist as in the 

 agriculturist. 



Oyster culture may be divided under three heads : — 



1. Banks, which are always submerged. 



2. Weed-beds (in France called crassats) or mud-lands, or 



foreshores, which are dry at low spring tides. 



3. Tanks or enclosed areas of water where the in or out flow 



of the tides can be regulated at pleasure. 



The first process is the simplest, since it consists of working 

 over beds with the dredge at suitable seasons, in order to 

 keep the cultch or shells on which the spat may collect clean. 

 Another benefit derived from dredging frequently is that of pre- 

 venting the oysters from running too much or too coarsely to 

 shell ; it tends to make a thinner, neater shell, and a more com- 

 pact and shapeable fish. The dredge, too, removes vermin, 

 weeds, mud, slime, &c, which, if not constantly disturbed, would 

 overgrow the oysters and cultch, and destroy them as collectors 

 of the spat.* The oysters also are evenly distributed, thin spots 

 are supplied. Fattening grounds are picked for the market, and 

 more oysters shifted to them from off the mere growing grounds. 

 This is pretty much the modus operandi of the Colchester and 

 Whitstable companies. 



The Whitstable Company is the largest and wealthiest oyster 

 corporation in the world ; it is a co-operative chartered body, and 

 the government is at once simple and effective. It cannot be 

 said to breed largely, as it seldom obtains a spat upon its own 



* Frequent dredging is practised in many places, but to save trouble the 

 fishermen throw the weeds, &c, &c, overboard again after selecting the oysters, 

 so that the frequent dredging does not produce the effect which it should. 



