A Few Oysters R Back

In hundreds of bays and inlets along the upper Atlantic Coast this week there was a splash of activity: the oyster season had opened.* Oystermen clambered into their tug-like boats, chug-chugged to the beds, used big dredges to pull bivalves from the bottom, came home gunwales deep with shellfish. To landlubbers everything looked the same. But veteran oystermen knew better.

Main difference is that this year's oyster haul is estimated at only 15,000,000 bushels, 20% below last year and the smallest in 21 years. One reason: an oyster takes four to five years to reach full maturity, but because of starfish, drills, other oyster hazards the 1939 baby crop (ticketed for 1942 plates and palates) was below par. But they will taste as good as ever, thanks to drenching August rains which washed larger amounts of minerals from the land onto oyster beds.

A short crop and increased operating costs have jacked prices up about 10% to $912 a barrel, depending upon size. Since there is no OPA ceiling on fresh oysters, prices might have gone still higher except that hotels and restaurants balked, said they could not pay more when their oyster bar prices have been pegged at a flat 50 or 60-c- per dozen for years. With the haul down more than prices are up, the U.S. oyster industry will take in about $8,000,000 this year, somewhat less than in 1937-41.

But oystermen worry more about labor than about volume. From Long Island (where 25% of U.S. oysters are cultivated) and from the Chesapeake-Delaware Bay area (where 60% grow naturally) thousands of the industry's 65,000 workers have traipsed off to defense plants. To get men back wages have been bid up 15%. U.S. No. 1 oysterer, Bluepoints Co. (General Foods subsidiary on L.I.), will smash the immemorial "no-wimmen" tradition, hire women for shucking, packing, other inside work.

*Oysters are always in season. But for conservation reasons they are not harvested in summer spawning months.

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