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THE MOTION PICTURE STORY MAGAZINE.
DREDGING OYSTERS BY MACHINERY.
very simply, about fifty years ago and a very few experiments served to demonstrate the great possibilities of sea farming. In America, however, true oyster culture, except in Long Island Sound and in the region about the mouth of the Hudson River, is yet to be realized. Along some of the Southern shores oysters are still taken from the natural beds directly to the markets. The process is extremely interesting.
After one has followed the career of an oyster from the embryonic state, thru the various dredging and culling processes, into the hands of the "sorter," who arranges the various grades demanded by the wholesale trade, into the fresh water, often unclean and full of germs but which fills all requirements for "bloating" purposes so that larger measures may be filled ; up and on again, into the care of the "shuckers," canners and packers, thence to the refrigerator car and ultimately served "fresh" on the same half-shell that has already done duty several seasons, one learns to respect the bivalve
that suffers such vicissitudes in silence and the remark, "as dumb as an oyster," ceases to be a term of opprobrium.
It is during the summer season that the young, swimming oysters begin to attach themselves to the various collectors which the culturists have had ready on shore and which are spread upon the collecting grounds at the proper time. Where the water is relatively fresh, in or near the mouths of streams, the clustering of oysters is far more rapid than in deeper and Salter water.
In Connecticut, where oystermen are wise and thrifty, it has been learnt from experience that a good crop of oysters depends upon real labor quite as much as do corn or wheat. In the main features, oyster culture is the same everywhere. The details vary according to differences in local natural conditions. The culturist prepares the oyster bed for planting, much as an agriculturist prepares his corn fields. Seed obtained from a natural oyster bed is usually clustered,