Oystering
Is Big Business
Scores of boats engage
in the dredging process
in Pamlico and Core
sounds, as well as in
other places. The State
lias taken steps to re¬
habilitate existing beds.
— By —
FRANK MONTGOMERY
PROBABLY no other food that
comes from the sea is ns uni¬
versally liked ns the oyster.
True it is that there are some folks
way back in the state who say they
wouldn’t eat one of the things for
love nor money, but if the truth were
known these folks really don't know
how good an oyster honestly is.
However, there are enough people
left. in the Old North State who love
the luscious bivalve to the extent
that the oyster industry has been
elevated to a position of great im¬
portance in the commercial fishery
business. Each year the annual
catch, taken from practically all the
tidal areas of the coastal section
where the water attains the proper
degree of salinity, or saltiness, ap¬
proaches the $150,000 mark in total
value. Some years the value of the
crop is greater, and some less, but
it will easily average more than a
tenth of a million dollars to the
oystermcn along the coast.
While, as above stated, oysters are
a common sight in the marshes and
tidal creeks all along the coast of
North Carolina, most of the oysters
marketed in the State are obtained
from l’amlico Sound and Core Sound,
and from various inshore areas in
Carteret, Pamlico, and Hyde counties.
These oysters are marketed chiefly
through dealers located in the vicinity
of Beaufort, Morehead City, New
Bern, Washington, and Belhaven. The
oysters are usually sold to the trade
according to the name of the locality
from which they are harvested. The
most important of which are Gull
Rock, Bluff Shoal, Nouse River, Point
of Marsh, Harbor Island, Newport
River, New River, Stump Sound, and
others. Trucks buy many of the
oysters at the numerous shucking, or
opening, plants along the coast and
carry them to cities all through the
Scene along the waterfront at Belhaven, where boats unload their cargoes
of oysters which are shipped by truck to all parts of the state.
state. Thus one may buy Stump
Sound oysters or New River oysters
almost as fresh in Asheville or
Winston-Salem as when they left the
sea coast.
Due to rapidly increasing consump¬
tion of oysters, which has badly de¬
pleted the supply on the natural beds
in North Carolina, the State Depart¬
ment of Conservation in cooperation
with the United States Biological
Laboratory at Beaufort has been mak¬
ing an effort to rehabilitate existing
beds and encourage new beds in the
sounds all along the coast by the
transplantation of seed oysters. Al¬
ready. during the past year, accord¬
ing to Dr. Herbert Prytherch. of the
fisheries’ station in Beaufort, over
750,000 bushels of these seed oysters
have been planted in the various
counties up and down the east short*
of the state. This will undoubtedly
prove of inestimable value to the
oyster industry of the state, where
most of the oysters are obtained from
the natural beds instead of the ‘‘farms"
common in the more northern sec¬
tions of the Atlantic Coast.
Oysters are a natural health food,
and medical men have seen qualities
in them that are a boon to sufferers
from anaemia. Besides that they are
extremely nutritious whether served
fried, as oyster cocktail, in fritters,
or milk stew. . Coupled with its* food
value and health attributes is its mar¬
velous flavor, and this, perhaps more
than any other single thing, has ac¬
counted for the popularity of the
oyster.
The Indians of the state in the
days long before the whites ever came
to Roanoke Island, were fond of
oysters, extensive pilgrimages being
undertaken by whole tribes from the
interior to tho seaeoast each year.
After the savages arrived at the coast,
there followed much feasting on
roasted oysters. As soon as every
man, woman, and child in the tribe
was gorged to the popping point, so
historians tell us, great pots of youpon
tea would be made and drunk, the
Indians subsequently lying around in
a stii|Ktr a good many hours.
As a testimonial to the fondness of
the red man for the oyster, one may
point to the many shell mounds at
different points along the coast of
North Carolina. I have, myself, ex¬
amined several in the Cape Fear sec¬
tion, and the presence of broken pot¬
tery ami an occasional arrow point
contributed to the authenticity of their
origin. Up on the Damariscotta
River, in Maine, there is one mound
of shells left by the savages estimated
to contain eight million cubic feet of
shells.
In connection with this fondness of
the Indians for the oyster, there is
told a little story that endeavors to
explain the manner in which the tirst
inhabitants acquired their taste for
(Conlinucd on page, twenty)