OYSTER CULTURE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8581, 1 June 1891, Page 6

OYSTER CULTURE.

Recently Mr. Watkins, J.P., of Russell, read a - paper on " Oyster Culture," at a public meeting in that township, the sub-* ject being one of 'special 1 interest: to. the; residents. ; - >• *< ' 1 1 ■ %

■He said as his object was a practicalrather than a 'scientific one, ho did nob propose-to" enter - largely intothe natural history of • the oyster.v: There were many varieties of oyster, and :he had a list of about fifty and the places where they were to be found. Ho might just note that he thought it nob at all unlikely that they might meet with other varieties round our coast than those they were in the habit of seeing.: It might be well ito commence by noticing; the 'wonderful;power of reproduction possessed by the oyster, and then they would start with a fair knowledge that they had good ground to work upon, and that if some care were given to the young oysters ini their " earliest 1 infancy there need be no difficulty in providing a very large quantity indeed. After quoting various authorities, he said Mr. Ey ton appeared to him to have made the most careful estimates. He dried' ' the spat of an oyster, and then '. carefully l-10th of a grain of it, in which, by the aid of a microscope, ; he • was enabled to count 2500: tiny : bub, perfect oysters.. Owing to natural enemies', one , writer had calculated - that nob - one in a million lives' arrived . at the condition of a full-grown oyster. The spawn or spat rose to the surface of the water and floated about for two or three days before settling finally to the; bottom, and in this stage it was' greedily devoured by fishes. He noticed in the Bay (Russell) ab the end of February • schools of 1 sprats very busily feeding upon something at the surface, and he had little doubt bub that ib was oyster spat. Not only .sprats but other fishes ate ib greedily, and they could easily understand that great quantities were'destroyed in this way, and when it sank to the bottom, crabs, mussels, starfish, and many other enemies took all they could get, so ib waslibtleto be wondered atthat the numbers were greatly thinned.;: The recent hard winter in "England is believed to have destroyed mature oy3ters in the great beds at Whibstableab the mouth of the Thames, to the value of £15,000. Mr. Watkins then described the life history of the oyster. In France it arrives ab perfection at five years of ago, in America at from two to four years. He did nob think that tho age of an oyster could be determined by the number of layers or rings; as ib appeared from examinations which he had made, that frequently many' layers were added in a single year. The oyster beds of England, France, and America : were then described, and the ruinous decline of the' industry until'

ARTIFICIAL CULTURE ; J was resorted to, and, he explained modes adopted ■: to *j ensure ? the safety : of the young oysters in the • earliest stage of their existence. , r The r oyster was 'a being , that could be watched, and men of science had j; been - watching J it. Its development in all its stages was known, and fortunately the conditions of it were such as could be produced artificially. The first important steps seem, to have been taken under . the" direction of Napoleon 111. of France, who, : hearing of the' distress caused by the failure > of the fisheries, caused Professor Coste, of the ' College of France, to, be engaged by; l the French Government to ? superintend the fexperiments made to try and revive the trade. That gehtlemap;wei)b;to Lnjjj) Fusaro, near , Naples,' in. Italy, where a : large oyster park existed and his report upon the system being favourable, he was : engaged ; to introduce it upon the' French coast, • and! the great success j attending jit during, the 40 years, - which > have passed " since - then has provedy. beyond I'doubb the .; value v- of - the method. '" The ' system which M. Coste found in practice at Lake Fusaro . was first introduced I ;by a Roman ' named ' Sergius Orata, who, as : is recorded by Pliny, established-, an : oyster farm at Lake Lucrin, 2400 years -'ago, and > as a French writer upon r oyster culture says, "The. centuries which have passed since the Roman lived, have not improved upon his plan," on which he reared and fed oysters to supply the luxurious Romans of that day.;? His method) is in use to this day, and. it is this : Heaps or lines. of rocks and stones are made in the lake, and oysters arc deposited upon them; . Around these heaps wooden piles : are driven into the bed - of : the lake, and sometimes it is simply numbers of piles 1 alone. At other places the piles are placed at convenient distances, and i sticks or , saplings are wattled in between them. And another plari is to place the piles further apart,'connect .them by ropes, and from-these ropes to suspendfaggots of brushwood, such plan providing places andsolid bodies tointerceptthe young oysters,' and t0,,, which they would attach ; themselves, in fact preventing their being carried ; away ..by . the current or drifted away by the wind and lost. Here the young oysters remain until they are old enough to be removed to the feeding grounds. This was 1 the plan first adopted by Sergius Orata, and is in fact the system which has formed the.foundation- for all operations which have been carried on in various countries - with universal success. The plan has : been , varied in many ways, and different "collectors" used for the young oysters to attach" themselves to, but the principle was the same in all cases. Mr. Watkins then reviewed the - plans in operation . in France, Holland, and America, which were ■-'the , best illustrations of : the work which was initiated by, and for .which' thousands have to be thankful to, the energy of M. Coste. To show . how a great . trade had grown in oysters in a short time he; thought he Auld not do better than mention what was done at the Island of Re, on the French coast. In 1858 oyster culture wa3 unknown there, but a man named Bceuf, a mason, took tho idea and enclosed' a" portion of the foreshore with a rough dyke of stones IS inches high. In this he put down a few bushels of oysters, and scattered a lot of big stones about, and in 1801' he sold £20 worth from his little park without impoverishing his stock. In 1862 he sold £40 worth. His success was assured, and many others went into the business, every available spot being occupied. In 1873 there were 4000 parks on its shores. It was calculated that in six years oysters to the value of £100,000 had accumulated upon lie de Re. At these beds they lay down about 600 oysters to feed to the square yard, the greater part of marketable size. The French have for a long time perceived the necessity for dividing the , trade into two distinct branches, utilising the places most suitable for receiving young stock for that purpose, and removing the ycuug to and feeding them upon grounds which are best adapted to growing and fattening them. ' In this way they have achieved great success. > J . V THE BRITISH OYSTKR INDUSTRY. In England the most important beds aro at Whitstable,'Vori the Kentish coast. ;■ They occupy 1000 acres, employ 3000 people, to whom £160,000 "a-year is paid in wages, and this trade has grown up on a place where the beds were supposed to be exhausted not many years ago, an example of what good management can do. At this place, instead of rearing young oysters, they buy you stock of, say, eighteen months or two years old; and lay them down to mature. The beds are watched and examined with the greatest care, and gone over every year. The oysters are lifted and looked over, young .brood removed, double ones separated, and all enemies destroyed. All this entailed extailed expense, but it paid well, as oysters bring high prices. He had paid Us v per : dozen for ' •' " natives" ' in London.'- Colchester ; was . another place celebrated;' fol- its oysters, and the system adopted there is the tame as at Whitstable. Care was taken to chooso a spot for a rearing bed where, the spat would not ' be carried away by tidal currents. -In the Menai Straits - many oysters ; are found. This source of!'supply owed its 'origin to a

Lord Carnarvon, who in the last century had a quantity of oysters scattered in these straits, and they increased so much as to become a source of considerable income. Following his example Government made similar deposits at different points round the coast with the same effect, and his (Mr. Watkins') first experience of an oyster boat was in these Straits •in his youth. In America" the oyster trade has ' become a very important one. The natural supply ten years ago was rapidly bocoming exhausted, and ( artificial oyster j culture has 1 been resorted to. At Newhaven, Connecticut, Mr. H. <■'. Howe, has annually 100,000 bushels of shells upon ' what is the most colossal farm in ■ the world, embracing an area of 15,000 acres of the bottom of the sea, more than 23 square miles. His example has been followed by many others. ; : SYSTEM OF LEASING OYSTER FARMS. . The system of contract and leasing the grounds for oyster ►.. farming varied in different countries. In Great. Britain the fisheries are under Government control, inspection, and protection, with upecial legislation. s . There ; are fi alio associations of private individuals who are interested in them. ,He hoped something 'of the same nature would spring into existence in New Zealand beforo • long. There were in the soveral countries various methods of leasing, bub he liked the American system best as it provided a secure tenure for the oyster farmer, who could reap the fruit of his enterprise. In the State of ISew York Act of 1887, known at the Oyster Franchise Law, the Fishery Commissioners fix the price of land, which is sold by auction, at an upset price : per acre, subjecb to an annual tax per acre, the limit being 250 acres. On from one to three acres a single fisherman can make a very good living. " '

• THE NEW ZEALAND OYSTER INDUSTRY: , I He wrote recently to the Commissioner ] of Crown Lands, in Auckland, asking; if spaco could jbe had to establish - art* ! oyster farm arid ' upon . what terms. That officer kindly replied, and sent him copies of the 3rd and 4th clauses of the Oysters Fisheries Act, 1868, .'which spccify th.at anyone who wishes to do so must first obtain permission in writing from" the Governor, through the Commissioner, and pay such sum yearly as the said Commissioner shall require, and . shall hold the same for such 'period, not exceeding 14 years, as the . said Commissioner may think fib, as tenant, and other conditions. He thought it would probably bo well that this Act should be altered, and the conditions of occupation framed more upon the basis of the American system. He had nob mentioned the manner in Which the oystermen take the oysters, and wished that lie could avoid doing so, or, rather wished that he could suggest a better method than the one which was . employed. Ho meant the dredge, for it was a mosb dreadful engine of destruction, and more to blame than anything else in the "matter of the : exhaustion of the natural beds. In its use young oysters with tender shells are destroyed wholesale, and mature, ones are pressed down into the mud .and smothered, and the destruction and waste are something dreadful. At the same time, he did not know of any other practical method of doing the work. Diving cannot be resorted to always. He had not seen a dredge hero, but know that ib was bound to come, sooner or later, and when ib did, he hoped if ib was used by anyone, that the dredger would remember that nothing had ever wrought so much havoc in the natural oyster beds as the carelessly used dredgfer."' Most especially was ib a murderous instrument in the early days of the open season after the close time has passed. The Act from which the Commissioner of Crown Lands quoted to him, ib would be noticed, was passed in 1866, and he thought that, the experience of other countries during these 25 years since • then would show how it might be altered to advantage in the matter of leasing grounds. The Fisheries Conservation Act, 1884, Amendment Act, 1887,' has clauses relating to close times, namely, for shore and., mud oysters; October' to January inclusive, arid for rock oysters December to March inclusive. ; He was by no means-sure that these times were quite ' rightly chosen. In fact, he doubted if they wore, and ib would be well if the Government would allow the matter,to .bo investigabed.iind««l%-. tcrinined. .He thought also" that the "distinction between rock and mud 'and shqre oysters might be reconsidered with advrtiitage, bub these matters should' be; considered and represented to the Legislature; Before , concluding; he wanted to ask o>ie question, - "Are there no oysters at the bottom -" of- this grand Bay of Islands'?" Surely, >i there | must be, unless some exceptional circumstances made :it different .to other j places. . If ib had been well tried, and proved that there were no beds, why, - there was an end of tse matter,) but judging from appearances fit might be very good ground: ,If it .had 119 1 been worked, he would be very happy to tell them all he knew about it. "Ib had puzzled him much to see men working continually in tho|mud flats fringing the Bay, and not a single real oyster boat about tho place. He had done with their friend, the oyster,' and the more he thought of it and studied it the more inclined he was to believe that an author whose book lie had recently read was not far wrong when he called it " the most valuable product which is drawn from the sea."