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the oysters are washed by the upper layer of fresh water, which purges them of all impurities and leaves them white and sweet. In this condition they will live and retain their flavor out of water for three months if closely packed and kept cool.

When the inquiries were made for this article, oyster grounds were valued at from

OYSTERS ATTACHED TO OLD RUBBER BOOT.

fifty to five hundred dollars and more an acre. It is to be presumed, however, that there has been a shrinkage in these values as in the case of all other property. Under favorable circumstances, an average yield of five hundred bushels of oysters to the acre can be reasonably counted on, very much larger crops being common. From four to six years are required for the maturing of a crop of spat, in which time an acre of seed will have increased to two or three thousand bushels if properly handled and cared for. This, it is to be feared, but rarely happens, most oyster growers trusting too much to nature for the development of their stock. Left to themselves, the oysters crowd each other and become pinched and illdeveloped. Many die; more are killed by stars and other vermin; and those that are left are in the end sadly inferior in size and quality to what they ought to be. In seafarming, as in every other occupation, it is only the intelligent, diligent and watchful that command high success.

Shortly before the war of the rebellion the oyster-beds of Virginia were represented by Governor Wise as having an area of nearly 2,000,000 acres, averaging four hundred bushels to the acre. The Virginia oysters are enormously prolific, and there

were none but human enemies to limit their increase; yet so unsparing and persistent had the pursuit of them become that they were in imminent danger of extermination. The war gave the oysters of the Chesapeake a respite, and the work of depletion was stayed; but it was speedily taken up again, and already the oystermen of those parts are deploring the exhaustion of their most valuable beds and the necessity of going further and further out for their supplies. The natural advantages of the Chesapeake and its tributary waters for the rapid growth of oysters are unsurpassed. Nevertheless, those seemingly exhaustless fields are faring precisely as oyster-beds have the world over when left to the mercy of men who have but one object in connection with them, and that is to gather each day the largest amount possible, regardless of the future. There never yet was a useful natural growth, however vigorous and prolific, that could hold its own against human greed untempered by personal ownership.

"No fishery," observed a prominent member of the British Oyster Fisheries' Commission lately, "No fishery can fail to be destroyed if left to the interested ingenuity of man, the oyster fishery least of all." The opinion is a plausible one-but it is utterly mistaken.

The British government has acted on it for years, vainly striving to foster the multiplication of oysters and oyster-beds by restrictive measures, close times, and the like, and all the while the oyster crop has fallen off and the prices of oysters has risen; they were ten dollars a bushel in 1862, and more than seven times as much in 1875. In like manner it has been attempted in this country to thwart, by various enactments, the "interested ingenuity" of oystermen, and always with an effect contrary to what was expected. The cure lies in the very opposite direction. If the depletion of our oyster-beds is to be stayed, if a constant supply sufficient to meet the steadily increasing demand is to be maintained, it will be by increasing the interest-personal, pecuniary interest-of oystermen in the oyster-beds, not by trying to thwart or restrain it. Oystermen must be allowed to be something more than oyster catchers. The ownerless buffaloes are doomed to certain extermination; they are nobody's property and everybody's prey. So likewise are the ownerless oysters.

The oyster commissioners of the Chesapeake predict that if the steady exhaustion

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of the oyster-beds of Maryland and Virginia continues, the entire stock will be used up within half a century, and we may be sure that no diminution in the demand for oysters will cut short the work of destruction. That the predicted extermination of the oysters of those waters, or any of the waters of our Atlantic coast, will really happen, however, we have not the slightest

OYSTER-BOATS.

fear. The nation cannot afford it, and will prevent it by giving to oyster growers the best of all encouragement-freedom and protection.

The country is well stocked with domestic cattle, and there is little danger of the supply running out. Suppose they were suddenly declared to be common property, as the oysters are, and no one allowed to hold a permanent personal interest in any he suffered to remain alive,-how long would the supply be kept up? In the case of cattle the interested ingenuity of man is wisely conservative; their numbers are increased and their quality improved by careful selection and cultivation. Why should the rule be reversed under water? Suppose the government were to authorize the survey and sale of shallows-in other words, land suitable for oyster farmingand make the oyster grower's title to the ground he stocks and the crop he raises as secure as the upland farmer's is,-would the quantity or the quality of the oyster crop be endangered?

The effect produced by a partial and

uncertain title, such as has been granted along the Connecticut shore, certainly does not point that way. While the perpetuity of oyster-beds on common ground has everywhere been seriously threatened, a shadowy title to cultivated ground has sufficed to cover miles and miles of once unproductive Sound-bed with the finest oysters in the world. Were the title made good enough to borrow money on, there would be no lack of capital to stock the rest of the Sound, or of men to cultivate its inviting acres now untilled.

Our excellent and serviceable National Fish Commission might do well to move in this matter. An act of Congress authorizing the sale of soundings along the coast exclusively for oyster farming would help the work enormously. The coastwise states, by supplementary enactments, could easily place the oyster farmer on an equal footing with the ordinary agriculturist with great advantage to them and to the country at large. There would be some delicate questions of local jurisdiction to settle, and some common rights to ordinary fisheries to be protected, but these need not lead to any

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A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE.

| serious difficulties. Nor would navigation be interfered with or impeded in the least. The productive area which might be

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secure against trespass as the upland farmer's, the oystermen of Long Island Sound would on extending their operations until every acre of the Sound-bed would be brought under cultivation. The depth of the waters would offer no obstacle, either to the growth of oysters or their propagation, since the finest natural oysters the Sound has produced were found in the deepest depression of that submerged valley, and the American method of cultivation answers as well in deep water as in shallow. By the gradual extension of cultivated ground, the star-fish and other pests of the oyster-bed would be brought more and more under subjection, and with the lessening of the risks and losses the cost of raising oysters would be reduced and the price would fall accordingly. The employment of steam power for propulsion and for hauling dredges would more than make up for the extra labor of dredging in deep water; and with the improvement in modes and means of working likely to come from the cultivation of large areas, the productiveness of the grounds-already worth more, acre for acre, than the best farm landmight be greatly increased.

The demand for American oysters at

outrun the demand. Vast as the present commercial and alimentary importance of the oyster trade has become, it is but in its infancy. It is capable of almost infinite extension; and when the supply is drawn, not merely or chiefly from unprotected natural beds, chance-sown and accidentally developed, but from larger areas systematically stocked, cultivated and defended against vermin and the unregulated greed of man, the oyster crop will rank among the first of American resources in point of value as it now does in point of excellence. It is nourished by the inexhaustible sea; it steadily enriches instead of impoverishing the land, and the average yield is several times more abundant and remunerative than any grain crop. It is little less than national folly, therefore, to pride ourselves on practical thrift, while slighting a field of productive industry so promising as this is; still worse to discourage honest enterprise in it, as has been done hitherto, by legal restraints. What has already been accomplished in the face of popular opposition, financial difficulty and needless risk, is a guarantee that the field is well worth working, and also that there would be no lack of workmen were they offered proper encouragement.

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SONNET.

THE foolish bud would fain become a flower,
And flaunt its heart out in the fair sunshine;
The ardent blossom, tremulous on its vine,
Dreams only of a golden fruitful hour.
Amber and amethyst, of royal dower,

The perfect, purple clusters hang, and pine
To pour their souls forth into perfumed wine,
Impatient leaning from their sheltered bower.
O blind ones! All your blended stores of scent
And subtle sweets to this poor end are spent ;
That man should idly quaff from sparkling glass
Your dew and fire and spice; sighing, while e'er
Your honey lingers on his lips, "Alas

The bud, the bloom, the fruit! How sweet they were!"

CHAPTER XII.

HIS INHERITANCE.

BY ADELINE TRAFTON.

DID HE SAY HE SHOULD COME AGAIN?

BUT the skating carnival was doomed never to take place. Claudia's zeal waned before the preparations were well under way. After hope, despair. In these alternations the days passed, until angry jealousy took the place of both and put an end to all desire to please and entertain her visitor. For Claudia now looked in vain for the renewal of the old intimacy with Captain Elyot, who did not avail himself of the permission she had given him that night at the door. He often passed the house, either alone or with companions; sometimes she met him face to face. He went in and out at Mrs. Stubbs's,-she herself had seen him, but he did not come to her. It tormented her day and night. If she only knew the cause of his staying away, she would be satisfied, she said to herself. Why had he asked to come if he had not desired it? What could it be that stood in the way? Not that she went about sighing, and groaning, and wringing her hands. Civilization has turned a key upon expression. No; Claudia lived her usual life, to

outward seeming, even partaking of the pleasures that came in her way, though without the heart to originate any. She was quiet, perhaps more so than in former times,-cool, and, if the truth be told, a little cross in the sanctity of her own home where one may certainly be allowed some privileges of expression. But Captain Elyot never dreamed of the mischief his careless words had wrought. They had passed from his mind-with a faint regret over their having been uttered-before he reached his quarters. If any thought of the evening lingered long with him, it was over Blossom, who had, without doubt, expected him. He fancied her alone,-as she was so many hours of the day,-listening for his knock at the door, turning her soft brown eyes toward it at every step outside; for, notwithstanding Lieutenant Orme's occasional notice of the girl and his freaks of kindly attention, it was to Elyot himself that she looked for her pleasures and the relief from the dullness of her life at the post. He had promised to teach her cribbage. They were to have made a beginning this night.

But Blossom had not passed so forlorn an evening as he imagined. It is well for peo

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glees from an old book Lieutenant Orme had picked up elsewhere. Some jolly fellow, ordered into the wilderness, had left it behind. They were droll songs to Blossom, with their "Tirra-la-las,"-all about hunting, and scenting, and rising betimes, and full of the blast of horns. Blossom's little fingers skipped and hopped about the keys,-no fox in the chase was ever more bewildered; but Mrs. Stubbs, at the further end of the room, taking her ease after the perplexing business of the day, thought it all wonderfully fine, and rejoiced over the girl's happy laugh, which filled every pause and took the place of more than one difficult passage.

"You left early last night," Captain

lieutenant went on, between puffing away at his meerschaum and critically eying its tint. "No sort of nonsense about her. I asked her to go out on the ice this afternoon." "Indeed!"

"Yes; but the old woman objected. It was too cold, she said. I assured her that there was every prospect of a change in the weather, but all for nothing. She held out against me, and I confess I gave it up rather than rouse her. They say there isn't such a temper within a thousand miles if a spark happens to strike her. I've no desire to be that spark, and besides, she might deny me the house if I proved troublesome. I'll try her again the first mild day. Or suppose

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