EUROPEAN METHODS OP OYSTER-CULTURE 
393 
THE OYSTER INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND. 
The following discussion is intended to summarize the chief features of English 
oyster-culture, and to show its present position from the standpoints of dredger, 
culturist, and government. The .subject, may conveniently be examined under three 
general headings: (1) the natural supply of oysters, (2) the granting of foreshore 
for purposes of culture, and (3) the cultural processes. 
THE NATURAL SUPPLY OF OYSTERS. 
The natural supply of oysters in Great Britain has been among the richest of 
Europe, and the quality as well as the quantity of the English oysters appear to have 
been noteworthy from the earliest times, as their merits are often recorded enthusias- 
tically by Roman authors.* 
There have been points in all of the many estuaries indenting the British islands 
where favorable conditions have produced natural oyster beds, which have become 
exhausted only within very recent years. In some localities the extreme saltness of 
water has not been favorable to rapid production, and these older and more slowly 
growing banks have been the first to succumb to overdredging. 
Estuaries, on the other hand, whose entire water volume has been tempered with 
a steady proportion of fresh water appear to represent the oyster’s natural breeding- 
grounds, and have retained their fertile character to a remarkable degree, even after 
the beds of spawning oysters have been well-nigh destroyed. Of this no better 
instance can be furnished than of the broad wedge-shaped indentation that forms the 
estuary of the Thames. This, although the most thoroughly-fished oyster-ground of 
England, and at the same time the nearest to the London market, has nevertheless held 
its reputation, even to the present day, as a natural u spatting” ground. It is note- 
worthy that on all sides there are in this region incurrent fresh-water streams which 
tend to keep the density of the entire volume of water slightly reduced. At the head 
of the estuary is the entrance of the Thames, whose channel passes down the axis of 
the wedge and separates naturally the shallow waters of Essex from those of Kent. 
On the south side of the channel are the Kentish flats, probably the richest and most 
famous of known grounds for oyster fattening. These begin at Havesliam, under the 
lee of the isle of Sheppey, fringe the southern shore with an oyster-bearing zone of 2 
or 3 miles in width, and extend seaward almost to Margate. There are here included 
about 30 square miles of cultural ground, upon which the depth of water at low tide 
varies from 1 to 2 fathoms. The bottom, as a rule, is hard, compact, clayey, and little 
apt to shift, and by continual processes of dredging and reslielling has been made 
smooth and clean. Midway between Sheppey and the sands of Margate is Whit- 
Stable, which overlooks the best portion of the Kentish flats. The water density here 
was (August 16, 1892) 1.025 at 64° F., and appeared to be remarkably uniform at both 
tides from the shore to the channel. 
* Cf. Dr. Philpots “ Oysters, and all about them,” Richardson, Loudon, 1890, p. 4 et seq. Hoek, 
Rapport sur les recherclies concernant l’huitre et l’ostreiculture, Brill, Leyde, 1883-84, iutrod. 
