OSTREAD^. OYSTER. 
73 
off by means of long poles, so that the shellfish farm 
is divided into separate fields, each being in a parti- 
cular stage of growth. At the time when the oysters 
are lifted for the London or other markets, they are 
measured by being thrown against a wire grating, and 
all those under a certain size are thrown again into 
the water. To give an idea of the business done in 
the oyster trade, it may be stated that in 1860 the 
Whitstable men took as much as £50,000, for native 
oysters alone, which, after deducting the cost of the 
brood, would still leave a handsome profit.^’ There are 
extensive fisheries opposite Milton, those of the Cheyney 
Kock. We are told that their farmer, Mr. Alston, has 
sent in a single season to London, more than 50,000 
bushels of natives^'’ from this one fishery.'^ Mr. 
Buckland w^as informed upon the best authority, that out 
of the open sea no less than £180,000 worth of human 
food, in the form of oysters, is annually abstracted. f 
The “ Milton natives^^ bear the bell, or may be said to 
be the pearls among British oysters. King John granted 
these fisheries to the Abbot of Faversham, in whose 
hands they remained till the dissolution, and they have 
been dredged from the earliest times by a company of 
fishermen, ruled, like those of Faversham, by certain 
ancient customs and bye-laws. J 
Jersey oysters are brought over and bedded in South- 
ampton Water, and the beds extend from thence to the 
coast of Osborne, in the Isle of Wight. They are de- 
scribed as being small, but of superior flavour, and are 
conveyed long distances to be laid down, naturalized, 
and afterwards sold as natives. They are also remark- 
* Murray’s Handbook, Kent and Sussex, p. 64. f See ‘ Times.’ 
X Murray’s Handbook, Kent and Sussex, p. 64. 
