FOREST, FISH AXD GAME COMMISSIONER. 127 



earlier set. Such an occurrence may be highly calamitous, as the new growth 

 may smother and kill the first growth or, at best, make it bunchy, clumsy 

 and comparatively unmarketable. The oldest and most experienced plant- 

 ers are frequently subjected to this misfortune. 



Seed Oysters. 



At the beginning of the warm season, succeeding the season of spawn- 

 ing, thousands upon thousands of bushels of young oysters (called seed) 

 are taken from their native beds and planted in more or less distant bays 

 and harbors, there to grow and mature under a new and different environ- 

 ment. This practice has occasioned a business demand for very young 

 oysters, concerning which the general public is almost wholly ignorant. It 

 constitutes, however, an important branch of the shellfish industry. There 

 are many bays upon our coast where the oyster set is so small as to be almost 

 a negligible quantity, and yet in these waters young oysters (seed), brought 

 from other localities and planted, make rapid development, attaining mar- 

 ketable size in perhaps one third of the time that would be necessary for 

 like growth in their native waters. These conditions occasion a constant 

 shifting of oysters from one locality to another. Frequently the} 7 are moved 

 to great distances. Quite a trade in seed has grown up with the Pacific 

 coast states, calling for many carloads of stock from Long Island Sound. 



The price of oyster seed varies under the laws of supply and demand. 

 Prior to the recent time of dearth of set (i 899-1904), from forty to forty- 

 five cents a bushel was a usual price for seed, but under the conditions of 

 continued scarcity the price mounted until it was often quoted at from 

 eight} - cents to one dollar, and in some instances one dollar and a quarter 

 was paid. 



Marketing the Stock. 



As the season advances and the water gets cold the oysters take on 

 fat, and those of marketable size are dredged for market. The harvesting 

 of a crop is the happy culmination of what may be considered as a some- 

 what hazardous experiment. It means that the product is at last safe, and 

 it never is safe until actually gathered; that the dangers of shifting sands, 

 of boisterous waves, of intense cold and ice, of starfish, borer, drumfish, 

 periwinkle and other enemies of the bivalve are past; that the planter who 



