GROWING OYSTERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22126, 4 June 1935, Page 11

GROWING OYSTERS

NEGLECTED OPPORTUNITY REPLY TO MINISTER EXPERIENCE OF THE PAST The question of oyster cultivation was discussed yesterday by a man who has had 40 years' experience in the trade and has investigated the industry in New South Wales. In his youth he was a picker and since has handled oysters in as large quantities as any merchant has been able to secure. It may be said at once that he considers the monopolistic control of the Government during the past quarter of a century as a failure from every point of view, and most strongly supports the contention that private enterprise should bo given a chance. He was inclined to agree with the suggestion that the objections of the Marine Department are for the most part founded upon the disinclination of officialdom to relinquish any hold it possesses through staff interests and because of the fear that private operations might prove official incompetence. Before Control "Before departmental control was established," ho stated, "moro and better oysters were marketed at a cheaper price. I know from personal experience that picking was done most carefully. Actually the oysters were never gathered in what are now called 'clumps'. They were singles or doubles at the most. A picker was given bags bearing his number and it was impossible for him to fill sacks of the rubbish which often is foisted on the market to-day. "The 'clumps' often contain many immature oysters, and some dead shell as well as a piece of rock. What supervision does exist is useless. The pickers take a bed 'on the face,' as it were. Everything goes in, whereas in the former days the picker had to discriminate. The proof of tho efficiency of the system is that a bottle of opened oysters that was then sold for one shilling and threepence now costs one shilling and ninepenco Batter Quality

"Not only did tho selection of oysters by the pickers produce a larger article but the general quality was better. As to this there may be something in tho theory that the oily scum which floats about tho shores of the gulf because discharge of waste from ships is dumped too close in—three miles outside of the Barrier is much too narrow a limit — affects the feeding of the shellfish, but nevertheless the same scum is liable to reach the oyster farms of the Hawkesbury River and other tidal reaches of New South Wales. It does not destroy the industry, however. "At Woywoy, New South Wales, I had opportunity to make a very careful investigation of the cultivation and it was going just as strong in 1925 as it was in 1911. Incidentally, it may not be generally known that the nucleus of the New South Wales beds went from Coromandel. A man known as 'Svdnev Dick' shipped quantities of stone "from that harbour bearing oysters at one stage or another, and never again was the Coromandel water, previously supplying the beet in the gulf, of any value." It was absurd, he continued, to argue that the conditions in New South Wales were better for the reproduction of ovsters. Natural reproduction in the nortnern waters of New Zealand showed that the temperature was quite suitable here and there was the further fact, proving the existence of much more feed, that in New South Wales shellfish were extremely rare under natural conditions. Mangrove Beds

Referring to the possibilities of mud flats similar to those of New South Wales, where oysters are produced on stakes, this authority mentioned that prior to control considerable shipments of ovsters were made to Australia from mangrove beds in the Upper Waitemata. "Some of the best and whitest oysters I have ever seen,' /e said, "were gathered from the stems of mangroves growing in the Whau Creek. I have gathered them there. So abundant was the supply that it was possible for a man to gather two sacks between tides. Before they were shipped the oysters were spread out and thoroughly washed to get rid of any mud they carried, but there was no question of their quality and no small ones were Pa The Minister of Marine, the Hon. J. G Cobbe, stated in an interview published vesterday that in Australia the selling price of oysters was as much as three times that of New Zealand. The replv of the present informant is that the actual quantity of fish in each sack of the New South Wales supply is very much greater because of the selection that is made by the private growers. "For the sake of their own business," he said, "they would not attempt to sell sacks containing a 'general collection, which are the fule here. Local Knowledge "I and many other people understand the industry,'' he added. "1 know what the nature of official control is. The very fact that the Minister speaks of guarding against 'sacrificing' oysters which will not be mature until next year or the year after, shows conclusively that discriminating picking has not been carried out in the past, and that it would not. he carried out this season in the beci's in question. I know also what, the natural crop was in the earlier days, and it is idle to suggest that there are not thousands of acres of suitable shores where private enterprise could establish ovster farms if it had the opportunity. In New South Wales one acre provides a good living for a man. He stakes the whole of it, putting up barbed wire entanglements on the seaward side to check thieves and co-operating with his neighbours in maintaining watches. "Personally, J would prefer to see the private industry developed on gulf shores such as those of Ponui, Rakmo and the Great Barrier Islands, where the free How of the tides makes for better feeding. At the same time, the mud reaches are of definite vale. The industry of the past proved it, and 1 applaud the Chamber of Commerce and the New Zealand Herald for their efforts to give private people a chance."