JAPANESE OYSTER-CULTURE. 
37 
as well by individual culturists as by the U. S. Fish Commission. The culturist who 
takes keen interest in his work should be looked to, I think, to select some especially 
favorable spot on his grounds and lay out an experimental farm, which need not be 
large and would not be costly. Brush to take the place of the bamboo shibi can be 
obtained readily, and one has merely to follow the broad lines of procedure laid down 
by the Japanese. 
Culture with the Japanese oyster on the Pacific coast is clearly out of question 
until it can be demonstrated conclusively that the imported oysters are breeding 
prolifically. The greater importance of these methods is as clearly in the line of 
improving our native Western oyster, for if they are grown by means of shibi and 
subsequently laid down in <1 eeper and deeper water they will, in all probability, 
increase in size and improve in flavor. Similar experiments with the Virginian 
oyster would also be of considerable interest. 
In the general problem of artificial oyster-culture one is not surprised to find that 
Japanese methods have paralleled closely those developed in Continental Europe. 
The principles are clearly the same, the means alone have varied. In Japan, as in 
Europe, those localities alone possess oyster- culture which are peculiarly favorable 
for it. Not every locality where oysters naturally occur offers a place for developing 
oyster farms, and he will surely be disappointed, whether in the United States, Italy, 
France, or Japan, who believes that his collectors are powerful magnets capable 
of attracting like iron filings, the entire yield of young oysters of the neighborhood. 
Tiles, fascines, .jingle shells, or shibi are excellent mediums for the attachment of 
oysters, but are valueless save in the event of an abundance of fry. 
He , therefore, who wishes to experiment in this form of oyster-culture will fare 
badly, I am sure, in spending time and substance in attempts to lay out a collecting 
ground in any locality in which spat does not occur every year and in great abun- 
dance. In fine, the experience of foreign culturists has gone so far as to determine 
that even in a good collecting ground there are tracts which, owing largely to cur- 
rents, are of great value, and that neighboring ones, sometimes but a few yards 
away, are to be avoided. But such delicate adjustments are the true product of a 
long-used system, whether European or Japanese. 
In the matter of elevage the Japanese do not rank as high as the French par- 
queurs, for they have not developed a system of tidal closures, or claires. These, I 
believe, would prove an important adjunct of the establishments of the shallower 
region of Aki, especially if carried out after the fashion of Brittany. 
