OYSTER SURGERY

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 162, 6 April 1931, Page 9

OYSTER SURGERY

Producing Pearls in Japan By leasing about 40,000 acres of warm saltwater in various bays along the shores of Japan, planting 3,000,000 small oysters—known scientifically as Magaritifera martensi—each year, performing a major surgical operation on each of them, then nursing the patients tenderly for seven years, an average of £400,000 worth of Japanese culture pearls is produced for world markets annually. The originator and controlling factor in this strange industry, says “Popular Science," is Kochichi Mikimoto, known as the “Pearl King” of Japan. For 23 years he operated nine “pearl farms” before raising a profitable crop. Now. though, by means of the scientific metlv ods he developed, he and his thousand assistants care for 7,000,000 pearl oysters constantly, and the raising of culture pearls has ceased to be au experiment. All pearls are produced by irritated oysters. A “wild,” “natural,” or “virgin" pearl results when a bit of sand, a minute crustacean, or some other .tiny foreign substance accidentally gets into the oyster’s body. If it is not able to eject 'the intruder, the oyster surrounds it with layers of substance which, in time, becomes a pearl. (