OYSTER BOTTOMS IN MATAGORDA BAY. 83 



dance and consequent crowding- are predestined to an early death, or, 

 if they survive at the expense of their fellows, will never reach a con- 

 dition fitting them for market. Those that live will, through partial 

 starvation and lack of room to grow, be the same poor worthless 

 things of which the adults now on the beds are types. The mor- 

 tality on such beds is enormous and practically the entire product 

 uhder present conditions is lost to commerce. 



It has been amply demonstrated that such oysters, poor, small, and 

 ill-shaped, have, if not too old, the potentiality of conversion into 

 oysters of the first grade if placed under the proper conditions. It 

 will not suffice to carry them in bulk, mixed with debris, and dump 

 them en masse on the nearest available bottom, as has been done in 

 some of the so-called planting heretofore attempted in Matagorda 

 Bay. To do so merely perpetuates, in a degree somewhat ameliorated, 

 perhaps, the unfavorable environment with which they have previ- 

 ously striven and the improvement obtained may be so slight as 

 hardly to pay for the labor involved. To obtain a proper measure of 

 success the oyster grower must produce better stock than can be ob- 

 tained on the natural beds, for he has to pay not only for practically 

 twice the labor which is expended in oystering on the reefs, but is, in 

 addition, under expense for the rental of the bottom on which he 

 plants. He must be in a position to supply fat oysters when those on 

 the reefs are poor, and to produce at all times stock of better size and 

 shape. Such stock involves less labor in shucking and " opens " a 

 larger proportion of meats to the barrel, and the dealer finds it 

 economy, therefore, to purchase it at a higher price than he could af- 

 ford to pay for the more inferior wild o}^sters. To get such superior 

 product the grower must proceed with care and intelligence com- 

 mensurate with that which must be expended to succeed in any other 

 calling. Oyster culture has everywhere received severe setbacks by 

 reason of the glittering promises so frequently held forth by theorists 

 that to make a fortune the only requisite is to plant at random and 

 reap the harvest. Nature is bountiful — many an oyster grower has 

 found too bountiful — but her concern is with the species and not with 

 the individual, whereas the character of the individual is a matter 

 of vital import to the grower, who will find it more profitable to have 

 a fair quantity of good oysters than a host of indifferent ones that he 

 can not sell, that are little or no better than the coon oysters of the 

 crowded natural reefs. 



The law in Texas makes excellent provision for the removal of 

 seed oysters from overcrowded and unworkable reefs, and, as is 

 shown in that section of this report dealing with the natural beds, 

 there is an abundant supply from which to draw. In nearly all 

 cases these oysters are in dense clusters, which, in order that grow- 

 ing and feeding space be provided for the individuals, should be 



