Oyster Farming

Manawatu Times, Volume LVI, Issue 6519, 7 April 1931, Page 2

Oyster Farming

INDUSTRY ALMOST EXTINCT PROSPECTS NOT BRIGHT One of the passengers by the next boat from Auckland to Sydney will be Mr Boris Cherniayeff, a naturalised British subject of Russian birth, who came across to New Zealand last January in the hope of finding things better on this side of the Tasman. He was disappointed, although ho can now claim to linvo seen a little of the Dominion and sampled Tolief works and casuel —very casual —occupations. Mr. Cherniayeff will take back with him two well-blistered hands, the result of using a long-handled shovel out Mount Roskill way.and the carving of numerous Maori gods in kauri. He has had some experience of_ woodwork, and being bandy with, a knife, got the carving idea after a visit to tho Auckland War Memorial Museum. Howover, ho found that there was little demand in Auckland for carved goods, and it took at least half a day to fashion one. The visitor was an oyster farmer on the northern New South Wales coast, at the Mecleay river, and he says that, at present, that industry is practically extinct in New South Wales. As he puts it: “They are too poor to buy oysters over there now.” Speaking of tire industry as he knew it durnig the past 10 years, Mr. Cherniayeff said that oyster farming had developed into a very big industry. He said that ho had tho lease of a comparatively small strip of foreshore on the MaCleay river, but on mangrove stakes it was possiblo to grow from 3000 to 4000 sacks of oyters a year. For the best oysters the price ran as high as £4 10/- a sack in good times, but the price fell until the point was reached at which the oysters could not be sold. There was a general blight on the industry, and there appeared to be no hope of revival until the general situation improved. Mr. Cherniayeff said that he was a student in Russia when the 1904 revolution came, but he managed to get away from, a Baltic port and reached Scotland. His next venture was in Chile as a travelling salesman. He said that lie had prospered there until induced to go to Australia. “From the little I have seen of things in Auckland I am surprised that oyster culture is not an industry in New Zealand,” concluded Mr. Cherniayeff. “Still, it might be just as well not to go on with it at the present time.”