CONSERVING THE OYSTER SUPPLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2056, 29 April 1907, Page 1

CONSERVING THE OYSTER SUPPLY.

PROPOSED GOVERNMENT SUPERVISION. (Per Press Association.) AUCKLAND, last night. AVirh reference lq the statement that ’the -Marine Department proposes to. ask Parliament to sanction a scheme under which the picking and sale, of oy sett's will be undertaken by the Department, a yepresentative of a leading local dealer on being interviewed stated: “It is an open question what is best to be done for the preservation of the oysters. It is very certain that now the beds have been thrown open— Ra'kijio, my own island, included—the pickers’ will skip them, and barnacles will take possession of the rocks, thereby preventing the spawn from developing, unless something is done. I know what 1 should do if the foreshore were' mine. I should spend pioney in cementing the rocks. thereby killing off the barnacles and encouraging the growth of oysters. Here in our harbor concrete buttresses that /have been erected have been actually covered with oysters inside ono year. I am of tho opinion that oysters will form on concrete rocks before barnacles. Hqwovcr, it is a matter of experiment, but that' is what 1 should do. Long ago I advocated that tho Government should take charge of the oyster beds rather than that they should ho leased to landholders, who would do nothing to preserve them. The landholders, in uiy opinion, would do nothing with the beds, but levy taxes on tlie oystermen, which, of course, means additional cost to'the consumer. As far as I call judge, it is the intention of the Government to employ pickers, and sell the oysters themselves. AVere the Government to enter into tho business they would find obstacles cropping up: but they have entered into the coal business, and they might make a success of the oysters, seeing that they will liavo a’ monopoly over the beds.”

MINISTER OF MARINE INTERVIEAYED. AUCKLAND, last night, The Hon. Mr. Millar, interviewed, said Auckland’s oyster beds were being depleted by indisorininate picking. His proposal was to lease the oyster beds to persons owning land abutting on tho beds,presuming they well pick only mature oysters. To