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Oysters — Part 3

Planting Oysters.--In making new beds men follow Nature's pattern. Choosing a location free from too severe currents, supplied with food, and ranging in depth under eighteen fathoms, the oyster-grower cleans away debris and prepares a shell bottom for the spat to light upon. It is often found that areas thus prepared will soon be full of young oysters, though no "seed" is laid down. The young fry drift far from their home grounds, and alight in localities suitable for their development.

"Clutch" and "stool" are technical terms applied collectively to any clean, firm body placed in the water for the attachment of spat. Oyster shells are most commonly used, being thrown broadcast from boats over the area intended for a new bed. Where mud is likely to submerge single shells, they may be dumped in heaps. Hard bottoms require the least quantity of shells. Muddy bottoms may require several "sowings," which gradually form a solid crust above a muddy sub-stratum.

Oystermen go to the east end of Long Island and get boat loads of the little "jingle shells" (Anomia) to put down. Spat that settles on jingle stool becomes separated by the disintegration of the thin shells in a year or two. Scallop shells are also used. Tin cans have been tried; the salt water rapidly eats through them, liberating the individual oysters. Light weight shells are liable to be washed away with their loads of young oysters by strong tides or currents. Oyster shells strung on wires and hung between submerged posts are good spat-catchers. But this plan involves too much labour. Brush and straw are used somewhat on muddy bottoms, and where currents are strong.

The Chinese have for centuries grown oysters on bamboo screens in the estuaries of rivers. The French, who have no natural oyster beds, have constructed an elaborate and successful artificial system of oyster culture, by converting worthless mud flats into parcs and claires. Here they grow and fatten oysters for the Parisian market, which is the most exacting and the best-paying market in the world.

The most perfect device for catching spat is used by French growers. Hollow tiles, coated with cement, inside and out, and piled crosswise in wire trays, are suspended between posts under water. The entire surface becomes covered with spat. In due season the young oysters are chipped off with the cement; thus separated, they develop in perfect form in trays where they are never allowed to become crowded.

In this country we still have natural beds in a productive state. Comparatively speaking, oysters are cheap and labour is dear. Conditions on the French coast are reversed. The most perfect methods of culture cannot profitably be adopted in the present state of the industry. Dr. Brooks's important demonstration that the ova of oysters can be artificially fertilised and carried safely over the critical embryonic stages, has, as yet, no practical bearing on the business.

Thinning and Transplanting.--The mangrove oyster illustrates the logical consequences of too much crowding. Spat which coats the clutch completely the first year enters upon a struggle for existence which warps and stunts the growth of all. So many feeding must often face comparative starvation.

When the spat is a year old, and the size of a twenty-five cent piece, the business of thinning and transplanting may well begin. A good "set" should furnish quantities of spat for planting new oyster beds, profitable to the owner for extending his acreage, or in sales as "seed" to other oyster growers.

Though two oysters may be alike in size and quality, the one with a smooth, regular shell brings a higher price in the market than the rough, irregular one, which is ugly and hard to open. So growers give considerable attention to breaking up the clumps upon which the spat is attached, thus giving the individual more room, and in the end making a crop superior in form, size and flavour.

The taking of oysters for market thins the bed, and improves the conditions under which the young oysters are living. With clutch of scallops and jingles, growth of the new shells is a force that helps to break apart the substance to which they are attached. Distorted shells improve in shape when the cause of their distortion is removed.

Flavour and Fat.--Transplanting has a marked effect upon the rate of growth and upon the flavour of an oyster. These considerations are vital. There is a year's difference in the time of bringing an oyster to market on the two sides of Long Island. As many as possible are taken to Great South Bay from the Sound for this final spurt. Two-year-old stock averaging one and three-eighth inches long brought from the Connecticut shore in May attain three inches by November. Cleaner water and more room make better-shaped shells, fatter and better-flavoured oysters--hence a higher market price. "Blue Point" oysters are all grown or finished in Great South Bay, though Blue Point is but one of many villages that supply the New York market with this popular brand.