GEELONG OYSTERS

Southland Times, Issue 16842, 19 September 1911, Page 7

GEELONG OYSTERS

STORY or rORGOTTEKT EZPERIMENT, In view of the quantity of oysters that go from the Bluft to Melbourne there Is interest in the story of the Geelong oyster experiment, revived recently by an announcement that fine oyster bearing beds had been discovered at Geelong. The “discovery,” as it turned out, was no discovery; in fact, some residents of Williamstown had been regularly for years past making weekly visits to Corio Bay for oysters. They knew they were, there because they helped to pul them there. They laughed at the statement that Sydney rock oysters would multiply at Geelong. They had tried them there, and they knew they would not. The story is not without interest. It was Colonel floath, of Plemington-road, North Melbourne, who first attempted the culture of oysters in Port Phillip. Visiting Geelong in 1553, he found a few —a very tew —oysters near the beach, but a year or so later there was none there. In 1870 he found remains of an oyster bed above high water mark, and concluded that at some time many years before there had been oysters in Corio Bay, which had been exterminated. Then his mind got to work like some of the Geelong and Melbourne enthusiasts of to-day. He would attempt oyster culture as a commercial concern. He then applied to the Government of the day for a lease of about four miles of foreshore for the purpose, and visited VVesternport Bay, South Australia, New Zealand, Western Australia and Now South Wales for oysters, which he intended to stock his lease with. It was three years before he obtained sufficient knowledge of tlie subject to "plant” his oysters with success, but at the end of that time he exhibited to Parliamentary representatives young oysters in a mass grown at Geelong from the size of a threepenny piece to the size of half a crown. A Captain Bolun and a Mr Prank then decided to invest in the oyster raising industry with him, and all subscribed about £ISOO for the purpose. Obi drain pipes, broken tiles, bricks, stones. &c., were sunk in the waters of the leased area and some hundreds of bags of oysters put in. They thrived, and threw off "spats” in any quantity. All looked well for the partners, and there were promises of riches in store. Colonel Heath was despatched to Pngland and Franco, where he studied oyster raising according to the latest methods, and after an absence of over twelve months returned, in the expectation of being able to enter the Melbourne market with his Geelong oysters a few months later. An oyster, he states, must be of five years’ growth

to bo of commercial value. When be visited the lease lie was mortified to find that the Harbour Trust had been dropping silt on It, dredged from the bar at Corio ■ Bay, during his absence, and his oysters were covered with four or five feet of mud. Not one was visible, and he and his partners, after vainly attempting to induce the Government to compensate them, retired from the industry dispirited, and at severe loss of money. Colonel Heath says that the oysters found by Geelong people are undoubtedly portion of those bred by him, and the majority of them are of the Stewart Island type. None of the Sydney rock ovsters iie purchased lived, and lie demonstrated -effectually that they would not live at Geelong. Ho has had many a plate of Geelong oysters since he gave over the venture, and lie does not doubt that some of the men who assisted him, and now resident at Williamstown, nave also helped themselves periodically, as they state.