30 OYSTER BOTTOMS IN MATAGORDA BAY. 



Raymond Landing Shoals are impediments to the navigation of the 

 bay, and the boatmen usually maintain stakes to mark their outside 

 limits. 



A number of observations on the dense beds indicate an average 

 per square yard of 90 oysters over 3 inches in length, 112 between 1 

 and 3 inches, and 147 under 1 inch. It is estimated that these beds 

 contain approximately 45,000 bushels of oysters over the limit of 3 

 inches, an average of about 560 bushels per acre. The production of 

 small oysters, or at least the proportion of small to large oysters, is 

 here far greater than on any other beds in the bay, and, this is prac- 

 tically the only place in which the product of spat — that is, oysters 

 under 1 inch long — is numerically predominant. It is not at all 

 unlikely that this preponderance may be in a measure due to slower 

 growth, but it can not be denied that the opportunities for spat col- 

 lection are excellent. Some shells bear as many as 50 infant oysters. 



The oysters are generally in dense clusters of from 3 to 6 adults 

 and more than twice that number of young and spat. The larger 

 individuals are long, narrow, and thin, averaging about 4J inches in 

 length, with many considerably longer. They are generally poor in 

 shape, condition, and flavor. In general they resemble those of 

 Middle Patches, but are considerably larger than are found on Mid- 

 dle Lump. The growth is so dense and the living oysters so strongly 

 adherent to the underlying shell beds that tonging is extremely 

 difficult. 



The oysters on Raymond Shoals, owing to their shape, are worthless 

 for shell stock or shucking, but they could be utilized to advantage 

 for canning, for which purpose the stock is opened by the aid of 

 steam. In the event of their being used for this purpose there would 

 be inevitably a great destruction of the young, which form an im- 

 portant component of the clusters, but it is undoubted that anything 

 resulting in the judicious working of the beds would be of advantage. 

 The oysters, as in others of the dense beds herein described, are now 

 so closely crowded that they can not grow to good shape, nor is there 

 food enough in the surrounding water to supply the untold indi- 

 viduals each with sufficient for its proper nourishment and the pro- 

 duction of a desirable quality of meat. The beds are more or less 

 overgrown with mussels. 



So far as could be learned, Raymond Landing Shoals have never 

 been worked, and it is probable that the inferior quality of their 

 product is a characteristic of very long standing. 



KAINS AND CLEVELAND PATCHES. 



These are several very scattering growths of oysters lying between 

 200 and 400 yards offshore, the former in the vicinity of Kains Land- 

 ing and the latter off Cleveland Bayou, just east of Duncan signal. 



