Whitstable, Colchester and Brightlingsea. The oysters landed on the coasts of England and Wales in 1898 numbered 35,809,000, valued at £122,320, and in 1899, 38,978,000, valued at £143,841. The Scottish fishery has its centre at Inveraray and Ballantrae, and in 1905 yielded 218,000 oysters, valued at £865. Public oyster grounds of Ireland in 1903 produced 2,532,800 oysters, valued at £5030. The fishery is most extensive at Wicklow, Queenstown, Ballyheige, Galway and Moville. Planting is carried on in seven counties; the oysters taken from cultivated beds in 1903 numbered 2,687,500 oysters, valued at £5420.
France.—The industry owes its importance to the attention given to oyster cultivation. In the fishery on public grounds in 1896 only 6370 fishermen were engaged, employing 1627 vessels and boats, valued at 1,473,449 francs, and apparatus worth 211,495 francs, while only 13,127,217 kilograms of oysters were taken, or about 320,000 bushels, valued at 414,830 francs. In the parks, claires and reservoirs the private culture of oysters has attained great perfection. Fully 40,000 men, women and children are employed, and the output in 1896 was 1,536,417,968 oysters, worth 17,537,778 francs. The principal centre is Arcachon.
Oyster Culture.—The oyster industry has passed from the hands of the fisherman into those of the oyster culturist. The oyster being sedentary, except for a few days in the earliest stages of its existence, is easily exterminated in any given locality; since, although it may not be possible for the fishermen to rake up from the bottom every individual, wholesale methods of capture soon result in covering up or otherwise destroying the oyster banks or reefs, as the communities of oysters are technically termed. The main difference between the oyster industry of America and that of Europe lies in the fact that in Europe the native beds have long since been practically destroyed, perhaps not more than 6 or 7% of the oysters of Europe passing from the native beds directly into the hands of the consumer. It is probable that 60 to 75% are reared from the spat in artificial parks, the remainder having been laid down for a time to increase in size and flavour in shoal waters along the coasts. In the United States, on the other hand, from 30 to 40% are carried from the native beds directly to market. The oyster fishery is everywhere, except in localities where the natural beds are nearly exhausted, carried on in the most reckless manner, and in all directions oyster grounds are becoming deteriorated, and in some cases have been entirely destroyed. At present the oyster is one of the cheapest articles of diet in the United States; and, though it can hardly be expected that the price of American oysters will always remain so low, still, taking into consideration the great wealth of the natural beds along the entire Atlantic coast, it seems certain that a moderate amount of protection would keep the price of seed oysters far below European rates, and that the immense stretches of submerged land especially suited for oyster planting may be utilized and made to produce an abundant harvest at much less cost than that which accompanies the complicated system of culture in vogue in France and Holland.
The simplest form of oyster culture is the preservation of the natural oyster-beds. Upon this, in fact, depends the whole future of the industry, since it is not probable that any system of artificial breeding can be devised which will render it possible to keep up a supply without at least occasional recourse to seed oysters produced under natural conditions. It is the opinion of almost all who have studied the subject that any natural bed may in time be destroyed by overfishing (perhaps not by removing all the oysters, but by breaking up the colonies, and delivering over the territory which they once occupied to other kinds of animals), by burying the breeding oysters, by covering up the projections suitable for the reception of spat, and by breaking down, through the action of heavy dredges, the ridges which are especially fitted to be seats of the colonies.[1] The immense oyster-beds in Pocomoke Sound, Maryland, have practically been destroyed by over-dredging, and many of the other beds of the United States are seriously damaged. The same is doubtless true of all the beds of Europe. It has also been demonstrated that under proper restriction great quantities of mature oysters, and seed oysters as well, may be taken from any region of natural oyster-beds without injurious effects. Parallel cases in agriculture and forestry will occur to every one. Möbius, in his most admirable essay Die Auster und Die Austernwirthschaft, has pointed out the proper means of preserving natural beds, declaring that, if the average profit from a bed of oysters is to remain permanently the same, a sufficient number of mother oysters must be left in it, so as not to diminish the capacity of maturing. He further shows that the productive capacity of a bed can only be maintained in one of two ways: (1) by diminishing the causes which destroy the young oysters, in which case the number of breeding oysters may safely be decreased; this, however, is practicable only under such favourable conditions as occur at Arcachon, where the beds may be kept under the constant control of the oyster-culturist; (2) by regulating the fishing on the natural beds in such a manner as to make them produce permanently the highest possible average quantity of oysters. Since the annual increase of half-grown oysters is estimated by him to be four hundred and twenty-one to every thousand full-grown oysters, he claims that not more than 42% of these latter ought to be taken from a bed during a year.
The Schleswig-Holstein oyster-beds are the property of the state, and are leased to a company whose interest it is to preserve their productiveness. The French beds are also kept under government control. Not so the beds of Great Britain and America, which are as a general rule open to all comers,[2] except when some close-time regulation is in force. Huxley has illustrated the futility of “close-time” in his remark that the prohibition of taking oysters from an oyster-bed during four months of the year is not the slightest security against its being stripped clean during the other eight months. “Suppose,” he continues, “that in a country infested by wolves, you have a flock of sheep, keeping the wolves off during the lambing season will not afford much protection if you withdraw shepherd and dogs during the rest of the year.” The old close-time laws were abolished in England in 1866, and returned to in 1876, but no results can be traced to the action of parliament in either case. Huxley’s conclusions as regards the future of the oyster industry in Great Britain are doubtless just as applicable to other countries—that the only hope for the oyster consumer lies in the encouragement of oyster-culture, and in the development of some means of breeding oysters under such conditions that the spat shall be safely deposited. Oyster culture can evidently be carried on only by private enterprise, and the problem for legislation to solve is how to give such rights of property upon those shores which are favourable to oyster culture as may encourage competent persons to invest their money in that undertaking. Such property right should undoubtedly be extended to natural beds, or else an area of natural spawning territory should be kept under constant control and surveillance by government, for the purpose of maintaining an adequate supply of seed oysters.
The extension of the area of the natural beds is the second step in oyster culture. As is well known to zoologists, and as has been very lucidly set forth by Möbius, the location of oyster banks is sharply defined by absolute physical conditions. Within certain definite limits of depth, temperature and salinity, the only requirement is a suitable place for attachment. Oysters cannot thrive where the ground is composed of moving sand or where mud is deposited; consequently, since the size and number of these places are very limited, only a very small percentage of the young oysters can find a resting-place, and the remainder perish. Möbius estimates that for every oyster brought to
- ↑ Even Huxley, the most ardent of all opponents of fishery legislation, while denying that oyster-beds had been permanently annihilated by dredging, practically admitted that a bed may be reduced to such a condition that the oyster will only be able to recover its former state by a long struggle with its enemies and competition—in fact that it must re-establish itself much in the same way as they have acquired possession of new grounds in Jutland, a process which, according to his own statement, occupied thirty years (Lecture at the Royal Institution, May 11th, 1883, printed with additions in the English Illustrated Magazine, i. pp. 47-55, 112-121).
- ↑ Connecticut has greatly benefited its oyster industry by giving to oyster-culturists a fee simple title to the lands under control by them.
