HOW TO COAX OYSTERS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1904, 19 November 1918, Page 1

HOW TO COAX OYSTERS.

PRODUCING PEARLS WHEN THEY DON’T WANT TO. Pearls would be even more precious and highly-priced (ban they are now if we were content only with pearls that Nature makes. Most people are aware that the pearl is the result of a disease of (he oyster in which it grows. Oysters do not want to have pearls. Pearls are forthcoming in Ibis way: A foreign substance such as a piece of grit or rock, gets inside the oyster’s shell, and, as the animal tries to gel it out again and again wit limit success, it sets up irritation and burls the oyster's lender body. BUILDING UP PEARLS. To save dself as much pain apossible, (be wily oyster, having failed to got rid of ihe irrifaling substance, proceeds to cover it over with a secretion of calcium carbonate, which saves its skin from soreness. When it has hardened, Ihe calcium carbonate becomes nacre or “mother of pearl.” The oyster lays it over the foreign substance in very thin, transparent layers, ami thus in time a pearl is built up. If you examine the inside of an oyster shell, yon will find a layer of nacre, which the oyster has put there in order to maize a smooth surface for its body to rest against. It is the same stuff that pearls are made of. Now, fishing for pearls is a very speculative and also a risky business. The pearl-fisher may gel a winner, but ofieucr lie will not. It has been estimated that 20,090 oysicrs are fished up before .C2 worth of pearls are obtained. ll is (bis uncertainty of profit in pearl fishing that outlined the idea of oyster-rearing and pearl-culture, r fhe Chinese wore the first to carry out (he idea. They gently open the shell, and, by means of thin bamboo chop slicks, insert liny pieces of shell or metal inside. After this inoculation the oyster is put hack into his pond or si ream on (he farm and fed well and regularly. In recent years the Japanese have also made great progress in pearl - culture. It takes four years for the oyster to make a pearl; that is, if it is going to maize one til all. FOUR YEARS IN “BED." The pearl eulturist takes the oyster from the sea when it is three years old. He then inserts (he irritant, and tlie oysters are systematically planted in beds, and carefully tended for four years. About thirty oysters in every hundred are found to have pearls. It must not he imagined, by (ho way, that pearls so produced are in any way artificial. They are not; also they are quite as valuable as pearls that have been found by chance in the oyster fisheries. ’flic “cultivated'’ pearls obtained from these carefully eared-for oysters are produced by the oyster just as surely as the other kind. All (hat man does to help mother Nature is to insert (ho irritant in the oyster’s shell: Ihe rest he leaves to Nature. Imitation or artificially made pearls are constructed of opalescent or tinted glass, coated inside with a special preparation of (isliseales and filled tip with solid wax.