Oyster farming

“ The greatest production is in Chesapeake Bay, where the principal yield is from the natural beds. Most of the oysters from New England and from New York and the outer coast of New Jersey are produced by planted beds; the entire yield of the Pacific Coast is similarly derived, and there has been recently a considerable increase in oyster culture in New Jersey, Virginia, and other States. The number of persons engaged in the industry is estimated at upward of 60,000, but as many of them are employed part of the year in other fisheries, farming, etc., definite statistics are not available. ”

“ In Germany the Elster River pearl mussel beds and in France the marine mussel and oyster fisheries have been saved and developed by proper legislation and governmental supervision. In this country the business of oyster propagation and farming has been profitably established under such well-developed laws as those of Connecticut. ”

“ These rich food beds are not plentiful, and many dealers are compelled to put small oysters on the market. The Bureau of Fisheries has made a study of these food beds, and by using fertilizer, such as farmers use on their land, have been able to make such beds of sea-plants grow where they do not naturally exist. These experiments have been tried only a short time, but the results have been entirely satisfactory, and it is hoped that before long, rich oyster beds may be made to grow in any part of the ocean where oysters will thrive. ”

“ Is it any wonder that the herring is now decreasing in numbers?
The oyster was once hunted so closely that it would have disappeared from our coast waters if the young had not been taken and raised artificially. Is it not interesting to know that we plant young oysters on oyster farms, and raise oyster crops, all below the level of high tide? The greatest oyster farms in the world are upon Chesapeake Bay. There are also oyster farms in other bays upon the Atlantic seaboard, and lately the oyster has been transplanted to the bays upon the Pacific Coast. ”

“ The total area comprised by the grants, 29 in number, is 188 acres, of which 121 acres are of hard bottom, suitable for oyster culture. There is very little shifting bottom. The usual Cotuit bottom is a clear sand, which is especially favorable for the production of fine oysters.
Thirty-three men are employed from six to eight months each year in the industry, which gave in 1906-07 a production of 25,850 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $48,050. Except for a small natural oyster bed at Centerville, no "seed" is caught in Barnstable, and is all brought from Long Island and Connecticut. ”

“ To-day not only is it necessary to so modify the oyster laws as to increase the opportunities for better utilizing our bays and estuaries for oyster growing on a more extensive scale than is done at present, but also for developing similar methods of growing clams and quahaugs, and perhaps also scallops. The tidal flats must, as well as the deeper waters, be made to produce food and money by securing a larger yield per [Pg 235] acre, and by the utilization of thousands of acres which are now practically idle, but which either are now adapted for growing shellfish or can readily be made so. ”

“ The oyster industry is the only one that has thus far been developed by planting and cultivating methods, so that it is now a great industry, employing thousands of steam, internal-combustion, and sail boats in their cultivation and collection for the market. The method employed by the largest growers is by the use of power boats which drag dredges. These are rakes with a meshed bag dragging on the bottom back of the tooth bar of the dredge to collect the oysters after they are raked or torn up from their beds. ”

“ When it was learned that the yield of a cultivated oyster bed far exceeded the natural product both in quantity and quality, the oyster laws were so modified that an important industry was built up, until to-day practically the entire oyster yield of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut is from cultivated beds, and the total product is many times the total catch from the natural beds in their palmiest days. ”

“ In 1901 special legislation was passed, restricting the catching of oysters in contaminated waters except for bait.
In 1904 authority was granted to proper officials to develop the oyster industry by planting shellfish, or by close season.
In 1905 the Fish and Game Commission was authorized to expend a sum not exceeding $500 per annum for the investigation of the oyster, by experiment or otherwise, with a view to developing the industry.
The development of the oyster laws has been by a process of evolution. ”

“ It is the general belief, however, that shell-fish beds must be cultivated as carefully as garden beds, and that this can only be done by leasing them to individuals. It is probable that the present unregulated methods will prevail until the dredging of the natural beds ceases to be remunerative, and that the oyster industry will then be transferred from the improvident fisherman to the care-taking oyster-culturists.” We are thus led to the inevitable conclusion that if our Australian oyster fisheries are to be re-created, it will be necessary to follow in the same lines. ”

“ Twenty-one men make a living from the industry. The production for the year ending Aug. 1, 1907, amounted to 2,100 bushels of marketable oysters, valued at $4,100, and 23,000 bushels of "seed," worth $15,000. The methods employed in oyster culture here are similar to those in use at Wareham. Thousands of bushels of shells, preferably those of the scallop, are strewn over the bottom to collect the set, which is then taken up and transferred to the proper grant or shipped for sale. The two great enemies of the oyster, the borer or drill, and the starfish, flourish here. ”

“ Then each boat or company makes their heap of oysters at some distance from each other, so that a long row of great heaps of oysters are seen piled along the shore. These are not touched till the fishing is over, when each company sits down beside its own heap, and fails to opening the oysters, which is now easy, as the fish within are all dead and dry. If every oyster had pearls in them, it would be a profitable occupation, but there are many which have none. ”

“ Rules have been made for the preservation of oysters, and to allow of new beds being formed. Oysters require nursing, and unless the beds were carefully preserved and reconstructed, they would disappear. The beds are level banks of no great depth, which are seldom or never uncovered by the tide. The first important business, when preparing a bed on which the oyster may spawn, or spat, as it is called, is to sprinkle over it broken plates and pans and tiles, with empty shells and such like substances, to which the embryo oyster immediately attaches itself. ”

“ This propagation must be very considerable, and the banks where the oysters breed very extensive, since, in spite of the continual dredging, they produce a sufficient quantity without any apparent decrease, to guard against which, the new beds of St. Brieux, mentioned in the first chapter, are carefully supplied. The dredging lasts generally from the middle of September till the end of May; during the other months the fishing should properly be discontinued, because the spawning, which then takes place, would be disturbed, and because during that time the oyster is generally not fit for food. ”

“ The single question, therefore, is whether the deepening of the channel across the bay, in the interest of navigation, with the incidental consequence to the oyster plantation of the lessee company, is a taking of private property which may be enjoined unless provision for compensation has been made.
The cultivation of oysters upon the beds of the shallow waters of bays and inlets of the sea, and of the rivers affected by the tides, has become an industry of great importance. ”

“ The preservation of the oyster beds is a matter of vital importance to the United States, for oyster fishing unsupported by oyster culture will, within a short period, destroy the employment of tens of thousands, and the cheap and favourite food of tens of millions. ”

“ Well, those are the kind of markers we use to stake off an oyster-bed. You see there are natural beds in the Bay, where the state won't allow any dredging except to ketch seed-oysters for spring planting. But an oysterman can lease as much land elsewhere as he wants and plant it with oysters. The state surveys it and then the oysterman marks it off with those poles. And if anybody but the owner dredges oysters in that ground he'll get just what a fellow would get if he went into a farmer's [Pg 38] field and stole his crops. The oysterman owns every oyster in his bed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Planters began to inquire for shells. Farmers began to bring loads of stakes with which to mark the oyster-beds afresh. Boats were overhauled. Propellers were removed from power craft or boxed in such a way as to render them useless, for the law prohibited any power boats from going on the natural oyster-beds. Nothing but sails could be used in dredging seed-oysters.
Then at last came the planting season itself, the great event in the oysterman's year. From far and wide a huge fleet assembled. Every boat that could still carry a sail and drag a dredge joined the assembly. ”

“ Why, even as it is, we don't get more than one oyster out of every six we plant."
"How do you know?"
"Why, we know how many bushels we plant and how many we ketch when they're old enough to be dredged. We plant about 500 bushels to an acre and we'd like to plant a thousand if we could get 'em. They're about the size of your thumb nail and there's about 700 to 900 seed-oysters in a bushel. By the time we dredge 'em we won't get more'n a basket for every bushel we planted. ”

“ The company pay large sums for brood to stock their own grounds, since there can be no certainty that the spat from their own oysters will fall favourably, or even within their own domains at all. Besides purchases from other beds, the parks are largely stocked with small oysters picked up along the coast or dredged from grounds public to all, sometimes as much as 50s. a bushel being paid for the best brood. It is probably this system of transplanting, combined with systematic working of the beds, which has made the Whitstable oyster so excellent both as to quality and quantity of flesh. ”

“ The adult oysters are plentiful on some of the paars, and seem for the most part healthy and vigorous; while young oysters in their first year, and masses of minute spat just deposited, are very abundant in many places.’
The chief causes of the failure of the fisheries, at any rate the chief causes which can be dealt with by man, are overcrowding and over-fishing. It might be supposed that these factors would counteract each other; but it must be remembered that they become effective at the two opposite poles of the oyster’s existence, which is thought to cover five, six, or seven years. ”

“ In England oyster culture is practically along the same lines as in the United States. Shells are used to collect the spat, and seed-oysters are planted in favorable places, notably on the bottoms controlled by the Whitstable Company, a coöperative corporation. On the Continent the methods are more elaborate, the low price of labor and the high price of oysters, as well as the restriction of the area upon which they can be grown, tending to encourage an intensive system of culture. ”

“ Weed, annelids, ‘blubber,’ shifting sand or mud, sewage or any poisoning of the water, are seriously harmful to the oyster’s best interests. A very severe winter is often the cause of wholesale destruction in the beds. According to the Daily News of 26th March 1891, the Whitstable oyster companies lost property to the value of £30,000 in the exceptionally cold winter of 1890–91, when, on the coast of Kent, the surface temperature of the sea sank below 32°, and the advancing tide pushed a small ice-floe before it. ”

“ Connecticut is making the experiment of giving to individuals personal title to submerged land, to be used in oyster culture, and this, perhaps, is the wisest step taken. Oyster production must soon cease to be a free grabbing enterprise, and be placed upon the same footing as agriculture, or the United States will lose its beloved oyster crop, and in this country, as in England, a fresh oyster will be worth as much as a new-laid egg. ”

“ A sudden change from the clear sea-water to the muddy tank is inadvisable, and thus a series of shiftings through tanks with water of graduated degrees of nourishment is the secret of proper oyster cultivation. ”

“ A century ago law was not justice, nor justice law. Perhaps it may not even be so now; and the story of the lawyer who ate the oyster in dispute, and gave each of the disputants a shell, may hold as good in our day as it did in that when the author of the "Beggar's Opera" put it into verse.
The demand for oysters, wherever it exists along our coasts, creates a profitable source of employment to a class of men who necessarily become experienced seamen; 50and dredging for oysters is carried on in fleets, as the beds mostly lie within a comparatively small space. ”