The Oysters 



set four inches apart fence in some of the beds. The oyster 

 fares of France have leafy branches, called pignons, interlaced 

 in the gates that close the canals, to frighten away skates and 

 devilfish which might enter when the beds are flooded by the 

 tide. It is necessary to go over oyster beds with dredge and tongs 

 to take up debris such as seaweed that has drifted in, and threat- 

 ens to smother the young oysters. 



This truth is evident : a stretch of sea bottom favourable 

 for an oyster colony encourages colonisation by various other 

 marine forms of life, animal and vegetable. The oyster farmer 

 must fight nature as the grower of corn or cabbages wages war 

 upon weeds and insect enemies. 



The Oyster Harvest. — Oyster beds are owned or leased, 

 according to varying state laws, and there are public beds where 

 anybody having a local licence may fish. No general fishing is 

 allowed in summer, nor may anyone ever fish by night. The size 

 and type of vessels and tools to be used are regulated by law. 

 Private owners and lessees are careful that the boundaries of 

 their beds be respected. These boundaries are marked by stakes 

 in shoal water; in deep water by buoys. A public or private 

 police force (often both) restrains illicit fishing. Public senti- 

 ment is strongly against law-breakers. 



Shoal beds are usually fished from small boats: canoes in 

 Chesapeake Bay, "sharpies" in Long Island Sound, dories on 

 the New England coast. The tools used are two-handed tongs 

 or "nippers." Each boat employs two hands, usually a man 

 and a boy. Deeper water, especially in exposed regions, requires 

 larger boats, more men, and more elaborate machinery for get- 

 ting the oysters. Dredges are forbidden by law in some states ; 

 steam vessels and machinery are forbidden in some. Tongs with 

 handles thirty feet long can reach bottom to four fathoms depth. 

 After this, dredging is necessary. The heavy dredge is very 

 destructive, but many private companies operate steam dredges, 

 with large crews of men, the most rapid, if the most wasteful, 

 mode of taking up the crop. The small-toothed rake dredge is 

 less efficient but less destructive. 



The small fisherman thrusts his tongs down over the boat's 

 gunwale and by working the two handles back and forth a bit 

 he manages to gather a load of something from the sea bottom, 

 between the two sets of inward-pointing teeth. The two arms 



432 



