120 ELEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



The minute eggs of the female oyster may be fertilized by the sperm 

 of the male in a test tube, or in an ordinary tumbler containing sea water 

 at the proper temperature. Numerous conditions, some understood and 

 some unknown, must be in proper adjustment in order to insure a con- 

 tinuance of life to the embryo bivalve. There are questions of tempera- 

 ture, specific gravity of water, salinity, the circulation or currents in the 

 water, food supply, etc., making much further research and experimenta- 

 tion necessary before artificial propagation can be made of value to the 

 practical oyster planter. Meanwhile those engaged in the industry are 

 watching these experiments with the greatest interest and hopefulness. 

 It will thus be understood that, as the trade can at the present time make 

 no avail of the methods of propagation, the planters employ their energies 

 in the use of every intelligent method of cultivation. 



Cultivation of the Oyster. 



The planter begins his work of cultivation when the young oyster has 

 completed the first, or free swimming stage, of its existence, and attaches 

 itself to the oyster bed; or, rather his work antedates this period, for he 

 must prepare the bed and have it swept and garnished and made suitable 

 and clean or the minute oyster will have none of it, preferring to make 

 further search as it is carried along by the tides and eddies until it shall 

 find a proper home or perish an unattached atom, a minute victim of one 

 of the myriad unnoticed tragedies of the deep. 



In this connection the writer said in his last report: ' The oyster 

 exudes thousands of eggs which (after fertilization) are carried along by 

 the tides until a clean, hard surface is encountered, when, if the limit of ex- 

 istence in the free swimming stage has not been reached, it attaches and 

 there remains during its life history unless removed by the planter to other 

 grounds. The uncertainties of the business to the planter are apparent. 

 The spawn from the oysters upon his own grounds may be carried miles 

 away by the currents, while the set upon his lands comes from an unknown 

 quarter; or, he may fail entirely to get a set, with the result that the money 

 spent by him in preparing the beds has actually been thrown overboard. 

 Thus from an oyster farm, other lands may be fertilized and enriched." 



