84 OYSTER BOTTOMS IN MATAGORDA BAY. 



broken into singles and smaller clusters before being replanted. As 

 the large clusters usually part readiry, the amount of labor involved 

 is not great and is amply repaid by the improved shape and condi- 

 tion of the resulting stock and the less time consumed in the final cull- 

 ing for market. 



There is always some mortality involved in the transplanting of oys- 

 ters, owing to injuries received in handling, the immersion of some of 

 them in the mud, and the unfavorable positions into which some fall, 

 especially when clustered, but the growth is usually so much more rapid 

 than in their original environment that the bulk or volume of the 

 planted stock rapidly increases. The gain to the planter comes both 

 from an increase in quantity and, under proper conditions, an in- 

 creased price due to superiority of quality. That the dealers will pay 

 more for fat and well-shaped oysters is evidenced in Matagorda Bay 

 by the fact that the schedule of prices is higher for oysters coming 

 from certain beds or localities than for those from other places pro- 

 ducing more irregular and more poorly nourished stock. 



The second method of oyster culture referred to above, that of 

 planting shells or other firm, clean material for the purpose of 

 catching the spat, or young oysters, is that which operates most 

 efficaciously to increase the oyster production of any given region. 

 As is shown in the descriptions of the several natural beds of Mata- 

 gorda Bay, probings have shown that all, or practically all, of them 

 rest upon a substratum, more or less deeply buried in accord with 

 the age of the reef, which differs in no essential particular from 

 the bottom which surrounds them. It is evident that they all origi- 

 nated in the deposit on the soft bottom of the bay or along its shores 

 of some firm body which, catching a few young oysters, served as a 

 nucleus from which the future growth extended. 



The egg of the oyster after discharge from the female meets in 

 the water a minute body discharged from the male, and as the result 

 of the fusion of the two there is produced a tiny embryo, very unlike 

 an oyster, which is endowed with feeble powers of swimming. Cur- 

 rents catching up these little bodies carry them about until such time 

 as a shell begins to form, when they are precipitated to the bottom 

 by their rapidly increasing weight. Should they fall on soft mud 

 they are speedily stifled; but if by happy chance they should lodge 

 on a clean body, say an old oyster shell or a living oyster, they at 

 once attach to it and begin to grow. 



Under the conditions obtaining in Matagorda Bay, and in fact in 

 all of the oyster regions of our coasts, the chances are vastly against 

 any given oyster fry finding a suitable lodgment. An inspection of 

 the accompanying chart will show approximately what these chances 

 are, practically the only natural places of attachment being on the 

 preexisting beds, and all spat settling down on the vastly greater 



