“ When ripe the sexual products ooze from the genital openings and fertilization results from their accidental meeting in the water. Segmentation results in five or six hours in the production of a ciliated gastrula, a cup-shaped, free-swimming organism, often carried by the currents to found new and remote beds. An embryonic shell soon appears, and the little oyster sinks to the bottom, where, if favorably situated, it becomes attached by its left valve and gradually assumes the adult form. ”

“ Rocky bottom is usually deficient in food, loose sand drifts and covers the oysters, and very soft mud ingulfs and stifles them or produces inferior elongate stock. Mud naturally too soft may be utilized by distributing over it shells, sand, or other material, which, resting on or near the surface, furnishes a firm foundation upon which the growing oyster may repose in security. For spat-collecting it is frequently advantageous to use hard mud, gravel, or rocky bottom in shoal water, ill adapted to adult oysters from deficiency of food. ”

“ The brood oysters should be planted several months before the spawning season, but the cultch should not be put down until spawning is about to begin, that it may be free from slime and sediment when the fry is ready to fix, even a thin coating of sediment being sufficient to suffocate the young oyster at that period. ”

“ Coarse gravel, pebbles, and crushed stone are used to a considerable extent in Long Island Sound and vicinity, but require a harder bottom than shells. The particles average about the size of a walnut or smaller, and as but few spat attach to each, the oysters are well shaped, less laborious to cull, and a larger proportion survive. ”

“ The recently attached spat is 1.80 to 1.90 of an inch in diameter, and its subsequent growth varies with its environment. Single oysters on firm bottom become round and deep, but those in clusters or on soft bottom grow irregular and elongate. On undisturbed natural beds they grow in clusters, and the beds repose, as a rule, on a muddy substratum upon which they have been built up from a comparatively small nucleus by the fixation, year after year, of the young upon the shells of their predecessors. ”

“ Tiles and fascines are generally used as spat-collectors, and especially in Holland and France a system of ponds or ‘claires’ is used for growing and fattening. Japanese methods somewhat resemble those of France and Holland in the recognition of a distinction between the bottoms used for spat-collection and for growing, although ponds are not used. Bamboo branches in regular arrangement are used for spat-collectors and the oysters are usually twice transplanted, first to a place favorable for rapid growth, and finally to beds especially rich in food, where they fatten. ”

“ Seed-oysters vary from ‘blisters’ 1⁄2 inch in diameter to individuals almost ready for market, but ordinarily they are between 1 and 3 inches long. They are obtained from planters making a specialty of seed production or from natural beds, their cost varying from 10 cents to $1 per bushel, the larger culled stock, separate, well shaped, and free from rubbish, bringing higher prices and giving the best results. From 300 to 600 bushels of culled seed per acre are used, a larger quantity of ‘rough’ material being required, as much of it consists of old shells and debris. ”

“ The sexual glands when ripe are creamy white organs surrounding the digestive system and opening on each side beneath the adductor. In Long Island Sound spawning occurs from May to August, in Chesapeake Bay from April to October, in South Carolina as early as March, and in Florida as early as February. In oysters transplanted during the spawning season reproduction is often interfered with or arrested. An average oyster will produce 16,000,000 eggs and a very large one 60,000,000. ”

“ The alleged method of fattening oysters by feeding with corn meal is worthless. ‘Plumping’ them by placing in fresh or nearly fresh water is a bloating and not a fattening treatment, and is less resorted to than formerly. Oysters should not be planted or bedded in the vicinity of sewage contamination, as they may thereby become sources of disease infection, but there is no danger to be anticipated from the consumption of oysters from beds remote from sources of contamination. Green oysters are sometimes placed on the market. ”

“ Some planters allow the beds to remain unworked until the crop is ready to market, but to produce oysters of superior shape and quality, the clusters should be taken up and separated as soon as they can be culled without injury. It frequently happens that good localities for obtaining a set are not favorable to the production of marketable oysters, and in this case the culled young may be transplanted with advantage and profit to beds possessed of an environment more favorable for the adults. ”

“ A sessile bivalve mollusk of the family Ostreidæ, especially any of the numerous species, extinct and extant, of the genus Ostrea. The shells are irregular and unequal; the fixed left valve generally spacious, strongly convex without and excavated within; right valve generally plane or concave externally, always less convex than its fellow: both shells beaked; ligamental area elongate or triangular; hinge toothless; adductor impression single and shell subnacreous. ”

“ The bottom being properly prepared and its boundaries marked with stakes or buoys, either system may be adopted to accord with circumstances. Generally seed-planting is more certain in its results and yields quicker returns to the grower. ”