256 " PONT OYSTEE-GEOUNDS. 



companies being set down at over £160,000 per annum ; and 

 in addition to this expenditure for wages, there is likewise a 

 large sum of money annually expended for the repairing and 

 purchasing of boats, sails, dredges, and other implements used in 

 oyster-fishing. At Whitstable the course of work is as follows : 

 — The business of the'company is to feed oysters for the London 

 and other markets : for this purpose they buy brood or spat, 

 and lay it down in their beds ta grow. When the company's 

 own oysters produce a spat — that is, when the spawn or " float- 

 some " as the dredgers call it, emitted from their own beds falls 

 upon their own ground — it is of great benefit to them, as it 

 saves purchases of brood to the extent of what has fallen ; but 

 this falling of the spat is in a great degree accidental, for no 

 rule can be laid down as to when the oysters spawn or where the 

 spat may be carried to. No artificial contrivances of the kind 

 known in France have yet been used in Whitstable for the sav- 

 ing of the spawn. Very large sums have been paid in some 

 years by the Whitstable company for brood with which to stock 

 their groimds, great quantities being collected from the Essex 

 side, there being a number of people who derive a comfortable 

 income from collecting oyster-brood on the public foreshores, 

 and disposing of it to persons who have private nurseries, or 

 oyster-layings as these are locally called. The grounds'.of Pont 

 are particularly finiitful in spat, and yield large quantities to all 

 that require it. Pont is an open space of water, sixteen miles 

 long by three broad, free to aU. ; about one hundred and fifty 

 boats, each with a crew of three or four men, find constant em- 

 ployment upon it, in obtaining young oysters, which they sell to 

 the neighbouring oyster-farmers, although it is certain that the 

 brood thus freely obtained must have floated out of beds belong- 

 ing to the purchasers. The price of brood is often as high as 

 fifty shillings per bushel, and it is the sum obtained over this 

 cost price that must be looked to for the paying of wages and 

 the realisation of profit. Oysters have risen in price very much 

 of late years, and brood has also, in consequence of the scarcity 

 of spat, been proportionally high. 



Whitstable oyster-beds are " worked " with great industry, 

 and it is the process of " working " that gives employment to so 

 many people (eight men per acre are employed), and improves 

 the Whitstable oysters so much beyond those found on the 

 natural beds, which are known as " Commons," in contradis- 

 tinction to the bred oysters of Whitstable and other grounds, 



