40 



REPORT ON OYSTER CULTURE 

 Fig. 25. 



ing aids to protect the young oysters from the effects of the sun 

 during the two or three hours daily that they are exposed at low 

 spring tides. Fascines, or faggots, or hurdles, are also used to 

 arrest the spat, heing pegged down in their places, and so secured 

 from floating away ; but these do not answer so well in open water 

 as the tiles or stones. In foreshore cultivation shells are also 

 scattered about near the oysters to receive a share of the spat ; but 

 these also should not be cast down until immediately before the 

 spatting season. One great cause why collectors do not answer 

 at times is, that they are often put down too long before the oysters 

 commence to spat, and thus the tiles and shells, &c., become foul, 

 and the wood gets greasy or slimy, and the oysters will not adhere 

 to it. Another reason for a defective spat often arises from the 

 fact of the oysters being laid down too short a period before the 

 spatting season. The removal of oysters from one ground and 

 depth of water, just before the spatting season, to another, is 

 often found to be prejudicial. The shorter time which elapses 

 between the laying of the collectors and the spatting of the oysters, 

 and the longer time between the laying of the oysters and the 

 spatting the better. Oysters laid on muddy ground often sink 

 into the mud ; so long as this happens gradually the oyster does 

 not suffer, for it contrives by the flow of the water which it takes 

 in and ejects, to keep a breathing hole open ; but when this occurs 

 from a sudden storm, so that the oysters are buried without the 

 chance of securing an air hole, they mostly perish. In France it 

 is customary when the ground is very soft, and the oysters sink, 

 to raise them every two or three months, and replace them on the 

 surface. In such cases, however, the oysters are usually put up for 

 fattening, not for breeding, though oysters breed well enough either 

 on mud lands or on weed beds. When the oysters are only laid on 

 weed beds to grow or fatten, it is not customary to hoe the weed. 



