The Cultivation of Oysters.

Manawatu Herald, 3 May 1902, Page 2

The Cultivation of Oysters.

On the coasts of France and.llol-, land, snd in a few places in England, oyster-farming, as it might be called, has now become quite an industry.' From his earliest infancy the bivalve' is watched and tended carefully* and the same science and attention are bestowed upon his growth and fattening for the market as upon ducks and fowls intended for the same purpose-, The first idea of which +he newly-born, oyster is conscious is that "he wants support. After drifting about for' hir first few days, and seeing things, hr carefully avoids the mnd shores, and clings hard and fast to the shingle in the centre of an inlet, or to the first hard substance which will afford him a fixed abiding place. This habit was first turned to account by a stonemason near Bordeaux, who took profitable advantage of it by digging a shallow pond in a foreshore near where he . lived, and placing in it a nhiinber of large stones. Next summer beifound that these were covered with young oysters. Neighbouring fishermen were impressed by the result, and hiring large stretches of the foreshore for the same. purpose, were delighted ta find ; that similar colonies establisheddhemj:, t' selves. The oysters gripped so haifd,',! * however, that it was frequently sible to separate them from the stones 1 without breaking their shells. After 1, several experiments bad beeni,-made with other devices, some ingenious perif son found that a good plan was to use ordinary roofing tiles for the spat poI., lected, first covering them with a coating of limewash, thickened with clay. ; The infant bivalves settled on the boat-" iug, which was easily scraped off under them when it was required to 1 remove them. It is this mode ot procedure, with various elaborations, which is now carried on along the coasts mentioned. At one fishery, that of Hayling Island, - about a hundred thousand parent bivalves will be dropped, at the begin- ' ning of May, in a prepared bed of about eight acres. In a few weeks time the oyster farmer may bo seen filling bottles with the water, and intently examining it with a magnifying glass,; for the first signs of bis crop. When ? he finds them he waits- another week, and then examines the tiles, each of which may by that time be supporting from twenty to a hundred of the tiny bivalves. By the following summer these will be about the size of a shilling, and the tiles are thee taken from

the bad, and the oysters detached from them, and placed in other beds for a ceuple of years to grow. The next year they are taken to the Whitstable H>t Colchester grounds and fattened tor the market,