18 
0Y8XEK CULTUBE COMMISSION—MINUTES OF EVIDENCE. 
Ml, H. 
Woodward. 
500. And you do not think it necessary to add to these beds by putting down dead oyster shells for 
instance from the banks ? Xo, I do not think so. I heard you ask Mr. Clarke a question about dead 
oyster shells. The oysters at the bottom die and the young ones keep growing on the toj) and the bed 
keeps increasing. I have seen beds of great thickness which are formed in this way on the Manning and 
other rivers. 
501. Mr, Farmll,'] Do you know anything in respect to the longevity of the oyster ? No, I do not. 
502. Ghairman.'] What is the thickest oyster shell you have ever seen—have you ever seen one 2 inches 
thick ? No. ■ 
MONDAY, 13 NOVEMBFB, 1876. 
^^rcstnt 
Hon. J. B. WILSON, | J. 8. EAENELL, Esq. 
The Hon. THOMAS HOLT, M.L.C., in the Chair. 
Mr. Peter James called in and examined; Mr. Bell, another witness, being present, by permission :— 
Mr. P. James. 503. Chairman^] You are aware, I presume, that the Government have appointed us a Commission to 
inquire into the best mode of artificially cultivating oysters and utilizing them, and of maintaining and 
13 Nov., 1876. impro.qngtijejiatural beds? Yes. 
504. You are an oyster merchant in Sydney, I believe ? Yes. 
505. Have you been engaged in the business for many years ? About eighteen or nineteen years. 
506. Have you had any experience in Europe in the oyster trade ? Not very much in Europe in respect 
to oysters, but I have had a good deal of experience in fish both in England and Ireland, and in Scotland 
as well. During that time I was sometimes among oysters a very little. 
507. And you are now a les.see of oyster beds belonging to the Government of this Colony ? Yes. 
508. You are not a proprietor as well ? No. 
509. Do you breed any oysters ? No, we have not bred any yet; we have tried a good deal of it once at 
Balmain, but vre have not succeeded as yet. 
510. Do you mean that you have tried breeding or fattening? Well, we have not succeeded in fattening. 
511. By breeding I mean securing the spat and laying them down in suitable ground? We have never 
tried any artificial means of securing the spat. 
512. But you have placed young oysters on beds in the Parramatta Eiver to grow and fatten ? Yes. 
513. And don’t you find it succeed,—do they not grow ? No. We have tried it; w'e have separated the 
young oysters from the large ones and kei)t them there for two years, but w'e have never seen any differ¬ 
ence in them. 
514. Do they keep alive ? Some of them, but not more than 10 per cent, of them lived. 
515. About 90 per cent, died ? Very nearly that. 
516. What was the cause of their dying? Well, we have not had suflScient experience in our beds to 
know what it was. We laid down battens with boards across them, and laid the oysters down on that so 
that the mud might not smother them; but they died just as fast; wo found most of them dead on the 
bottom. 
517. AV'hat was the character of the soil on which you laid them ; was it sand ? Tliere was a little sand; 
it was pretty hard,—gritty white sand with a little shell mixed with it. 
518. Do you know that kind of mud which is universally known as London clay ? I cannot say I do. 
519. Do you know a description of mud which is soft to the touch, almost of the same consistency as soft 
soap ? Yes, greasy and buttery. 
520. Well, that is known as the London clay—was it on clay like that that you laid the oysters? Some of 
them, but most of them were laid on a hard sandy bottom. You see the ground is patchy; there are 
patches of white sand, and then you get a bit of soft mud; the patches of mud are near low-water-mark, 
but there is not much of it. 
521. But you never tried the experiment of laying oysters on that soft mud? No, uot on that mud 
particularly. 
522. You have laid them all on the sand ? AYell, it is more like gravel than sand at the point at Balmain- 
rock, and little pebbles—and we have succeeded best at the point. I laid down thirty-six bags of oysters 
there one season, and I took up next season, I think, twenty-nine hags; that was the only success I had. 
523. Mon. J, B. Wilson.^ Had they improved much during that time ? Yes, they had improved both in 
size and quality ; but when we tried a little further in near the point we had no ouccess at all; the oysters 
would grow perhaps half-an-inch or so, but they did not fill or shell up. AVo could see them a month or 
two after we laid them down, and they had shot out a little, but they never got further. 
524. But are you not aware that that coincides with the experience of English cultivators—that oysters 
will never grow or fatten on sand ? Yes, because the sand gets into them and chokes them; but here we 
never find any sand in them. 
525. But we find, according to the evidence of witnesses before a Select Committee of the House of 
Commons this year, tliat they will neither thrive nor even live where there is sand, and Erank Buckland 
attributes this to the fact that particles of sand get into the mouth of the oyster when it is opened, and 
as they cannot reject the sand it kills them ? We could not find many of our oysters with sand in them; in 
fact there arc plenty of what are called sandy bottoms wirii very little loose or drift sand upon them. 
Tlie bar bed on the Manning now is completely swept away—sanded up—but in a few years time it will 
be cleared away and oysters will settle there again. 
526. On what rivers do you lease oyster beds ? Camden Haven, the Clarence Eiver, Port Stephens, the 
Manning Eiver, Cape Hawke, and Port Macquarie. 
527. AVhere do you get the best oysters ? AYe reckon that the best oysters are from the Manning Eiver 
and Camden Haven, but the largest quantity comes out of the Clarence Eiver; we find them breed best 
there. 
528. Are there many very poor oysters brought into the Sydney market for sale ? There are a great 
many 
