EUROPEAN METHODS OF OYSTER-CULTURE. 
391 
capacity of a single park, suck as tke oue described, wliick is, at tke greatest, about 
a kalf million oysters per montk. 
Tke grades of oysters furnished by an Ostend firm are in order of value about as 
follows: (1) Native Whitstable ; (2) native Colchester; (3) Burnam native “ nut” oys- 
ters; (4) Victoria natives, a French oyster transplanted in tke Thames estuary (these 
grades are said to stand two weeks’ transportation and storage) ; (5) French oysters 
(from Brittany mainly), said to bear a week’s storage; (0) the Dutch oyster (Zeeland), 
placed as the lowest grade, perhaps for commercial reasons. 
In the neighborhood of Ostend the Belgium coast furnishes two more localities 
for oyster conditioning, one at an eastern coast suburb, Blankenbergke, the other to the 
westward at Nieuport. The establishment of Dr. Auselme ver Nieuwe at Blankenbergke 
(PI. lxxxvi, Fig. 1), differs somewhat from those of Ostend, and should be briefly 
noticed. It is near the Blankenbergke sea dike, and draws its water from a canal 
near its outlet into the sea. This canal as it backs up its waters before they are allowed 
to escape, forms a kind of claire reservoir, slightly brackish,* where the silt is depos- 
ited before the water is drawn by the culturist into his fattening “pits” or small 
cemented basins. Gates lifted by a cog windlass enable the water to be taken in daily 
or to escape. The cemented pits are separated by masonry walls into four side-by-side 
compartments, each about 30 by 20 feet, and may be separately emptied or filled. In 
each compartment are low longitudinal partitions of boards, between which the oysters 
are thickly stowed, and are daily shoveled to and fro as at Ostend. A depth of about 
8 feet of water is normally maintained. The oysters become in condition in about 
three to four weeks. 
At Nieuport the establishment of Meinesz & Co. (PL lxxxvi, Fig. 2) presents a 
number of modifications of the usual Belgian processes. Cultivation proper, i. e., the 
raising of marketable oysters from imported seed (from Brittany) is here carried on. 
The principle is that of Ostend, but is favored at Nieuport by making use of an old 
fortification whose U -shaped moat forms a large reservoir pond. The two cultural 
ponds lie end to end between the arms of the U. It will thus be seen that the water, 
which may be admitted from the canal emptying into the harbor, may first be passed 
into the end of the reservoir pond, and in escaping may be made to form the circuit 
flowing out through the cultural ponds at its original point of entrance. The reser- 
voir ponds, although shallow, appear to contain several times the water volume of the 
cultural pond. The water density of the latter slightly freshened from the canal and 
harbor, perhaps also by surface drainage, was at the time of the writer’s visit 1.021 
to 1.022, at 59° F. As at Ostend, the reservoir is daily filled and at low tide on 
the following day, when the water has become nearly siltless and richer perhaps in 
food organisms, the contents of the reservoir will be allowed to flow into the cultural 
ponds. 
All ponds appear to be channeled along the median diameter (where sediment 
accumulations may be readily removed), and a normal water depth here of about 6 
feet decreases gradually to the margins. The reservoir ponds are earth-bottomed ; the 
cultural ponds are mainly of concrete. The richness of the organism element of the 
reservoir water is, as at Ostend, attested by the remarkable numbers of oysters which 
are here cultivated. Each cultural pond measures 20 by 200 yards, and, as the illus- 
*Water in tile pits was 1.022 at 60° F., July 29, 1892. 
