Oysters — Part 5

In any dredging many young oysters are destroyed. But dredging for enemies is the lesser of two evils.

Crabs are a formidable oyster enemy in Chesapeake Bay. They are also profitable shell fish; so they are permitted to live until of marketable age, though they cause great damage to the oyster beds. A tangle takes them up in great numbers.

The sting ray or "stingaree" menaces the oyster beds in San Francisco Bay. To exclude this enemy palisades of stakes set four inches apart fence in some of the beds. The oyster parcs of France have leafy branches, called pignons, interlaced in the gates that close the canals, to frighten away skates and devilfish which might enter when the beds are flooded by the tide. It is necessary to go over oyster beds with dredge and tongs to take up debris such as seaweed that has drifted in, and threatens to smother the young oysters.

This truth is evident: a stretch of sea bottom favourable for an oyster colony encourages colonisation by various other marine forms of life, animal and vegetable. The oyster farmer must fight nature as the grower of corn or cabbages wages war upon weeds and insect enemies.

The Oyster Harvest.--Oyster beds are owned or leased, according to varying state laws, and there are public beds where anybody having a local licence may fish. No general fishing is allowed in summer, nor may anyone ever fish by night. The size and type of vessels and tools to be used are regulated by law. Private owners and lessees are careful that the boundaries of their beds be respected. These boundaries are marked by stakes in shoal water; in deep water by buoys. A public or private police force (often both) restrains illicit fishing. Public sentiment is strongly against law-breakers.

Shoal beds are usually fished from small boats: canoes in Chesapeake Bay, "sharpies" in Long Island Sound, dories on the New England coast. The tools used are two-handed tongs or "nippers." Each boat employs two hands usually a man and a boy. Deeper water, especially in exposed regions, requires larger boats, more men, and more elaborate machinery for getting the oysters. Dredges are forbidden by law in some states; steam vessels and machinery are forbidden in some. Tongs with handles thirty feet long can reach bottom to four fathoms depth. After this, dredging is necessary. The heavy dredge is very destructive, but many private companies operate steam dredges, with large crews of men, the most rapid, if the most wasteful, mode of taking up the crop. The small-toothed rake dredge is less efficient but less destructive.

The small fisherman thrusts his tongs down over the boat's gunwale and by working the two handles back and forth a bit he manages to gather a load of something from the sea bottom, between the two sets of inward-pointing teeth. The two arms cross just above the rakes and so act like a pair of long-handled pincers. Up he hauls his load and dumps it in a broad trough. He hauls again and again, then stops to "cull" his trough. The few oysters go into a basket; the rubbish, including dead shells, etc., set with young spat, is thrown back. A bushel or two of oysters from the public beds, product of a day's work, satisfies the small fisherman. They will bring him two to three dollars, carted about the town, and furnish him a stew for supper beside. But there are many stormy days when he can't go out. The public beds are becoming fished out.

The dredges are scoop shovels that drag the bottom, and when full are lifted, dumped in the vessel, and lowered again. The culling waits until the vessel is in and the cargo discharged. The shells and other materials suitable for "clutch" are thrown into a pile. The oysters are sorted; the spat is put aside to be laid down again, and objectionable rubbish is discarded, along with oyster enemies. Culling of each dredge-load on the boat dumps back much objectionable debris. Careful harvesting involves a thorough cleaning of a bed.

The average depth of beds in Long Island Sound is five to six fathoms. Great South Bay is deeper and the outer beds cannot be fished in severe weather. Oysters form them are laid down near shore in fall and taken up for winter use, by cutting out a ten-foot strip of ice; the tongers stand on planks laid across the open water, and load their baskets into wagons standing on the solid crust.

Sorting.--Oysters sent to seaboard markets go in barrels or bags in the shell. These are "sorted" in the sheds that line the shores. I saw the process at Patchogue, Long Island, in 1906. Men sat on stools before bins filled with the oysters as they came from the dredges. Bushel baskets were close at hand on the floor for each sorter. In one he threw the small, regular three-inch oysters, the choicest sort, due to bring $1.50 per bushel, wholesale. These are served on the half-shell. The next grade are large ones, used to fry. They bring $1.25. Smaller ones, for general use, $1.00. Into the fourth basket irregular shells were thrown, to be opened by the retailer, who gets them for eighty cents. Once out of the shells they are as good as any "bulk oysters." Dead shells are saved for clutch. Young oysters are planted again next day.