EUROPEAN METHODS OF OYSTER-CULTURE. 
395 
course, be possible that tlie next season, through favorable conditions, will prove a 
“spatting?, one, although it must be admitted that the chances are decidedly 
adverse. 
When exceptionally favorable seasons can not be depended upon, the means for 
securing spat suggested by continental experience have been to maintain rigidly a 
permanent stock of natural spawning oysters. Following this course of regenera- 
tion, the spawning- grounds of Auray and Arcachon have developed surprising reg- 
ularity in spatting seasons, a result which could hardly have followed had the natural 
supplies been exhausted and had the culturist waited for the advent of favorable 
years.* (Cf. p. 404.) 
To obtain seed oysters in the Thames estuary by artificial processes has been 
aimed at by many culturists,- and the high price of native seed has ever been a great 
j incentive. All experiments, however, have proven unsuccessful. Tiles placed in 
■ continental methods on the Whitstable flats were shown to be scarcely more fruitful 
j than a bottom of shells or gravel, a result not unaccounted for when we consider the 
normal absence of natural spawning beds in the neighborhood and the comparative 
barrenness of neighboring oysters when constantly cultivated.! The process in use in 
nearly all the English localities is accordingly little more than the shelling of the 
ground during the spring, in the manner usual in Long Island waters of the United 
States. As will be seen in the discussion of the industrial processes, this operation 
pays for itself by adding to the cultural capacity of the ground, even granting that 
no seed oysters are obtained. In the event of a favorable season, the shell collection 
is as apt to be “ smothered” with spat, as would be the more costly kinds. Thrift in 
this matter can not, however, be regarded as British, as tile-collectors, it will be 
remembered, are only employed on the continent, where at particular points the annual 
set is sufficiently heavy to make their use profitable. 
In artificial production the goal of all English culturists has been the cosmopolitan 
one, to rear in a reservoir pond a large percentage of the two or three millions of 
embryos set free by each spawning oyster. The profits of a success in such a venture, 
even for a season, in view of the price of native seed, would be so great that company 
after company has been organized for the purpose of artificial culture. Costly ponds 
have been prepared, varying in size from square yards to acres, with almost every 
condition of bottom, density of water, kinds of collectors, number of contained 
spawning oysters, and devices (including steam power) for water aeration. In one 
instance (Hayling Island) may be mentioned an ingenious device for changing the 
water in the breeding pond, a device which allowed the surface water to be withdrawn 
at night and the bottom water during bright sunlight, when the young were supposed 
(upon what exact evidence the writer is unable to learn) to seek the surface. The 
difficulties that have stood in the way of the success of these enterprises appear to 
have included excessive saltness of water, sediment accumulations, and malaeration 
caused in the main by the restricted area of the basin, which has resulted in fouling 
the water by the death and decomposition of the inmates of the pond. With these 
evils there has often been a general mismanagement financially. During the first 
* In regard to regulation, see Huxley, loc. cit., latter part of article, 
t Hoek, loc. cit, p. 481. 
