Large quantities of fish offal are used by the farmers as manure. The intestines of the herring are regularly sold for the purpose of being thrown upon the land, and I have heard of as many as three hundred barrels of haddock offal being sold from one curing-yard. It is thought by some economists that the commoner kinds of fish might be largely captured and converted into fish guano. I have not studied that part of the fishing question very deeply, but I am disposed to doubt the propriety of employing fishing vessels to capture coarse fish for manure, as I do not think it will pay to do so. In former years fish were extensively used as manure, but that was during seasons when the capture was so large as to produce a glut. I reprint, in the shape of an appendix to this volume, an account of the fish-guano manufactory at Concarneau in Finisterre, as well as some information about the fish-manure of Norway.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE NATURAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF THE OYSTER.
Proper Time for Oyster-Fishing to Begin—Description of the Oyster—Controversies about its Natural History—Spatting of the Oyster—Growth of the Oyster—Quantity of Spawn Emitted by the Oyster—Social History of the Oyster—Great Men who were Fond of Oysters—Oyster-Breeding in France—Lake Fusaro—Beef’s Discovery of Artificial Culture—Oyster-Farming in the Bay of Biscay—The Celebrated Green Oysters—Marennes—Dr. Kemmerer’s Plan—Lessons to be gleaned from the French Pisciculturists—How to Manage an Oyster-Farm—Whitstable—Cultivation of Natives—The Colne Oyster-Trade—Scottish Oysters—The Pandores—Extent of Oyster-Ground in the Firth of Forth—Dredging—Extent of American Oyster-Beds.
August is a month that has red-letter days for those who delight in the luxuries of eating. Do we not in that month begin the carnival of “St. Grouse?” and do we not hear in the bye-streets of London the pleasant sounds of “Please to remember the Grotto?” It is the month that ushers in the ever-welcome oyster. In nearly every small street and alley early in August may be heard resounding the words “Only once a year!” and groups of merry children building their grottoes remind us that the long days are passing, that autumn is at hand, and that in a few brief months the Christmas barrel of oysters will be travelling “inland” on the rapid railway, passing in its course the friendly and welcome exchange hamper of country produce, containing the choice pheasant and the plump turkey. But September, and not August, is the right month for the inauguration of the oyster season, although, by ancient custom, perhaps originating in the impatience of our gourmets, the proper date has been anticipated, and oyster-eating has become general even so early as the 5th of August. It is wrong, however, to partake of oysters thus early—as wrong as it was three centuries ago to eat them on St. James’s day, although the superstition of the period gave weight to the act; as in those days there existed a proverb that persons who ate oysters on the 25th of July would have plenty of money all the rest of the year.
In those remote times the knowledge of sea-produce was exceedingly limited, as people could only guess the proper season for indulging in what we call “shell-fish;” and although it is not easy, from the difficulty of obtaining access to sea animals, to obtain accurate information about their growth and habits, yet it is pleasing to think that we know a great deal more of those interesting creatures than our forefathers ever did. Our worthy ancestors, for instance, were quite content to swallow their oysters without inquiring very minutely about how they were bred; the oyster-shell was opened simply that its contents might be devoured along with the necessary quantity of bread and butter and brown stout. They did not think of the delicacy as a subject of natural history—with them it was simply a delicious condiment. But in the present day that style of eating has been altogether reformed: people like to know what they eat; and from the investigations of M. Coste and other naturalists we now know as much about the oyster, and the mollusca in general, as we do about the Crustacea.
Generally speaking, many curious opinions have been held about shell-fish. At one time they were thought to be only masses of oily or other matter scarcely alive and insensible to pain. Who could suppose, it was asked, that a portion of blubber like the oyster, that could only have been first eaten by some very courageous individual, could have any feeling? But we know better now, and although the organisation of the mollusca is not of a high order, it is perfect of its kind, and has within it indications of organs that in beings of a higher type serve a loftier purpose, and point out the beginnings of nature, showing how she works her way from the simplest imaginings of animal life to the complex human machine. The oyster has no doubt in its degree its joys and sorrows, and throbs with life and pleasure, as animals do that have a higher organic structure.
Zoologically the oyster is known as Ostræa edulis. Its outward appearance is familiar to even very landward people, and no human engineer could have invented so admirable a home for the pulpy and headless mass of jelly that is contained within the rough-looking shell. The oyster is a curiously-constructed animal; but I fear that, comparatively speaking, very few of my readers have ever seen a perfect one, as oysters are very much mutilated, being generally deprived of their beards before they are sent to table, and otherwise hurt, both accidentally in the opening and by use and wont, as in the case of the beard. Its mouth—it has no jaws or teeth—is a kind of trunk or snout, with four lips, and leafy coverings or gills are spread over the body to act as lungs, and keep from the action of the water the air which the animal requires for its existence. This covering is divided into two lobes with ciliated edges. Four leaves or membranous plates act as capillary funnels, open at the farthest extremities. Behind the gills there is a large whitish fatty part enclosing the stomach and intestines. The vessels of circulation play into muscular cavities, which act the part of the heart. The stomach is situated near the mouth. The oyster has no feet, but can move by opening and closing its shell, and it secures food by means of its beard, which acts as a kind of rake. In fact the internal structure of the oyster, while it is excellently adapted to that animal’s mode of life, is exceedingly simple.
It is not my purpose in the present work to enter into the minutiæ of oyster life. Indeed, there have been so many controversies about the natural history of this animal as to render it impossible to narrate in the brief space I can devote to it a tenth part of what has been written or spoken about the life and habits of the “breedy creature.” Every stage of its growth has been made the stand-point for a wrangle of some kind. As an example of the keenness with which each stage of oyster life is now being discussed, I may mention that in the summer of 1864 a most amusing squabble broke out in the pages of the Field newspaper on an immaterial point of oyster life, which is worth noting here as an example of what can be said on either side of a question. The controversy hinged upon whether an oyster while on the bed lay on the flat or convex side. Mr. Frank Buckland, who originated the dispute, maintained that the right, proper, and natural position of the oyster, when at the bottom of the sea, is with the flat shell downwards. Mr. James Lowe, a gentleman who takes great interest in pisciculture, and who has explored the oyster-beds of France, held the opinion that the oyster is never in its proper position except when the flat shell is uppermost. Of course, the natural position of the oyster is of no practical importance whatever; and I know, from personal observation of the beds at Newhaven and Cockenzie, that oysters lie both ways,—indeed, with a dozen or two of dredges tearing over the beds it is impossible but that they must lie quite higgledy-piggledy, so to speak. A great deal that is incidentally interesting was brought up in the discussion to which I have been referring. There have been several other disputes about points in the natural history of the oysters—one in particular as to whether that animal is provided with organs of vision. Various opinions have been enunciated as to whether an oyster has eyes, and one author asserts that it has so many as twenty-four, which again is denied, and the assertion made that the so-called eyes projecting from the border of the mantle have no optical power whatever; but be that as it may, I have no doubt whatever that the oyster has a power of knowing the light from the dark.