The business of the company is managed by twelve directors, who are known as “the Jury.” The stock of oysters held in the private layings of the company is said to be of the value of £200,000. The extent of the public and other oyster-ground at Whitstable is about twenty-seven square miles. The oyster-farm of Whitstable is a co-operation in the best sense of the term, and has been in existence for a long period. The layings at Whitstable occupy about a mile and a half square, and the oyster-beds there have been so very prosperous as to have attained the name of the “happy fishing-grounds.” At Whitstable, Faversham, and adjoining grounds, not counting a large surface granted to a newly-formed company, a space of twenty-seven square miles, as I have mentioned above, is taken up in oyster-farms, and the industry carried on in this space of ground involves the annual earning and expenditure of a very large sum of money. Over 3000 people are employed in the various industries connected with the fishery, who earn capital wages all the year round—the sum paid for labour by the different companies being set down at over £160,000 per annum; and in addition to this expenditure for wages, there is likewise a large sum of money annually expended for the repairing and purchasing of boats, sails, dredges, and other implements used in oyster-fishing. At Whitstable the course of work is as follows:—The business of the company is to feed oysters for the London and other markets; for this purpose they buy brood or spat, and lay it down in their beds to grow. When the company’s own oysters produce a spat—that is, when the spawn, or “floatsome” as the dredgers call it, emitted from their own beds falls upon their own ground—it is of great benefit to them, as it saves purchases of brood to the extent of what has fallen; but this falling of the spat is in a great degree accidental, for no rule can be laid down as to whether the oysters will spawn in any particular year, or where the spawn may be carried to. No artificial contrivances of the kind known in France have yet been used at Whitstable for the saving of the spawn. I will now explain, before going further, the ratio of oyster-growth. While in the spat state it is calculated that a bushel measure will contain 25,000 oysters. When the spawn is two years old it is called brood, and while in this condition a bushel measure will hold 5500. In the next stage of growth, oysters are called ware, and it takes about 2000 of them to fill the bushel. In the final or oyster stage a bushel contains about 1500 individuals. Very large sums have been paid in some years by the Whitstable company for brood with which to stock their grounds, great quantities being collected from the Essex side, there being a number of people who derive a comfortable income from collecting oyster-brood on the public foreshores, and disposing of it to persons who have private nurseries, or oyster-layings as these are locally called. The grounds