OYSTER TRADE. The management of the oyster fishery presents many peculiar features. The best kind of oysters in this country are the small 'variety called Natives; they are found in the rivers Colne, Medway, and Swale; or rather, they are really French 4stcrs, the produce of thd coast of Normandy, whence the spat or spawn is and laid &him iiii the Oyster beds in thei Essex and Kent rivers: The spawn; when first cast; somewhat resembles in appearance a drop of suet ; it is composed of an immense number of minute oysters, each of which becomes abeitt a quarter of an inch long in three AS large as a shilling in three months, as a half crown in six months, and as a crown in twelve months: The oyster is Rhine' in the seas Of most countries; but never at any great depth, and seldom far from the Mouth of a river; The fishing for oysters is permitted from the first of September to the end of April.
So far as regards the London supply; the *tors are brought principally from the Essex coast and rivers ; but the Milton Oysters are most highly esteemed; None are sent from the forth of England ; hut broods are sent froim thence to be fattened in Kent and Sussex; The sale at Billingsgate is enormous ; it is estimated to average, in ordinary about 300,000 bushels, of 4 pecks to a and 400 oysters to a peck; amounting to nearly five hundred million oysters: A remarkable feature is now being developed in the oyster trade: At Southampton there is a Wide margin of Muddy shore at low water: A Company has leaSed part of this shore as an oyster bed: Oysters are brought from the Jersey fishery, laid dawn on thosd beds to fatten, turned and attended to every day, taken up when wanted, opened, placed in tin cans, and sent up to London by railway. These oysters are used
for pickles and sauces, and not eaten in the ordinary way. 'A tramway extends from the South-Western Railway to the oyster beach, so that the dispatch of the oysters is very rapidly. managed: An electro•telegraphie message, call be sent at any hour; and a supply of filled oyster-cans transmitted to London with a rapidity which sets all former doings at de fiance. The oysters are sent without their shells, to save freight; there is a corps of oyster-openers in the service of the com pany.