IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND FRANCE. 37 



grounds, and in former years trusted greatly to the spat from the 

 large quantity of oysters it possessed floating on to the common 

 ground known as " The Flats" (now the property of the Heme 

 Bay Company), where the small oysters were dredged, and at 

 low tide picked up, and sold to the Whitstable Company to be 

 deposited on their grounds. The company also bought largely of 

 the Essex dredgermen and others. 



It is calculated that eight men per acre are required at Whit- 

 stable to work their grounds. Three days per week are also 

 given to cleaning the ground, shifting oysters from one part to 

 another, collecting the marketable-sized oysters into one place, 

 destroying starfish and other vermin, and four hours of each other 

 day are also devoted to this. During the other three days they 

 dredge for the market, in which operation a certain quantity called 

 ' a stint" is assigned to each boat, which it must complete and must 

 not exceed. When this quantity has been obtained the day's work 

 is over. 



Each evening the amount received from the sales at Billingsgate 

 is divided by the managers, consisting of a foreman, assisted by a 

 jury of twelve persons, all fishermen of the Company. 



The Coin river is worked in a similar way by a body of 

 fishermen under the Corporation of Colchester. 



There are in Ireland many places where such a method of oyster 

 culture could be advantageously applied, such as the large loughs, 

 the estuaries of rivers, and the large bays with which Ireland 

 aboands. 



The cultivation of crassats (mud lands) and ebb-dry foreshores is 

 available for either associated bodies of fishermen or individuals; it 

 is confined entirely to the ground above low-water at spring tides. 



It is especially adapted to the wants of a poor population, on a 

 rocky coast, partly fishermen and partly farmers, such as we 

 find in many parts of Ireland, and where the shores are suitable 

 for cultivation, and the requisite materials abound on every side, 

 only requiring labour to make them available. From Cork round 

 westward, and still onwards even to Belfast and Strangford, there 

 is scarcely an inlet where the residents on the coast might not 

 improve their condition by cultivating the rocks and shoals which 

 surround them; — they possess advantages far exceeding those of the 

 inhabitants of the Islands of Re' and Oleron in the Bay of Biscay. 



The first thing necessary is in the months of April and May to 

 clear away the weed from the rocks, to construct roughly small 

 enclosures with the large stones at hand, placing them so as to 

 form a low wall about a foot high ; an engraving of the method 

 on which they are constructed is given at page 24. Oysters are 

 not yet so far destroyed at most of these places but that they are 

 yet obtainable by dredging, and if laid in the months named in 

 those pares would probably deposit a valuable spat ; from July to 

 the following May no care or attention is necessary. 



In the case of estuaries of rivers, bays, harbours, or loughs, 

 when the ground consists of mud banks or weed beds, the process 

 is somewhat different. There pares may still be made, but it 

 becomes necessary to attend more to the cleansing of the collec- 



