The Oyster King’s Blueprint: How Connecticut’s ‘Submarine Landlords’ Could Save Washington’s Economy

Bryant A. Treat, one of the shellfish commissioners of Connecticut, had an exhibit in Parlor C at the Palmer House yesterday which was of interest to people out West who don't know from actual observation but what oysters grow on a kind of submarine bush and are picked when they are ripe.

Mr. Treat showed a conch shell covered with oyster spawn as thick as grains of corn on a cob. "There isn't room for the thousand or more to grow on this shell," he said, "and as fast as the stronger ones grow they shove off the little ones, who grow on their own hook. They can get along just as well on the sand after they get so far along. An acre of oyster land will produce 1000 bushels of oysters, which are worth approximately $1 a bushel. So, you see, it's a tolerably paying crop."

"Now, just as the farmer has to kill off potato bugs or they will kill the potatoes, so the enemies of the oyster have to be killed." Mr. Treat took down some cards on which had been strung in piecing conventional forms starfish, usually five-pointed, but with some eccentric examples that run from one to nine points.

"These are the oyster's deadly enemies, and here is how they kill him. We caught this one in the act. The five points had closed around the oyster like a human hand. They shut the oyster tight till he can't stand it any longer, and just as soon as he opens a little of shell to get a bit of air, or rather water, in sneaks a finger of the starfish, pulls the oyster out of his house and devours him.

"Now, the way we kill these off is this: We rake over the beds and all these other animals stick to the rake. The oyster doesn't. We take the enemies out and kill them. They are good for fertilizing, and that's all."

"I want to tell you about the system that Connecticut has of protecting the oyster farmers. It is the best system of protection ever devised. It doesn't give one man the advantage over another, and the man with land on the seashore can't claim riparian rights farther than low water mark. Next to that there are natural beds. Anybody in the season is free to go on them and make what they can. Beyond the natural beds are the artificial beds. The state is the landlord. Each owner of lots has a perpetual lease conditioned on his paying an annual rental on its value, depending on its location. The state gets a good revenue, landowners are protected from oyster pirates, and yet the common right of all to dredge for oysters is not traversed, while the state is still the real owner of the submarine lands.

"The upshot of it all is that a man may make from $2 to $30 a day, and wages around are correspondingly high. Oystermen along the coast are universally well-to-do, and are comfortably housed and educated. I think the same system applied to land in general would be productive of the same good results. The state would then get its sole revenue from the value of land, while the rights of producers to their product are guaranteed. Wages would go up as they have in the oyster business."