The authorities all agree, as above, that however good some cooked oysters may be, if you would have them in their most delicious condition, you must take them _au naturel_. In Wilson's "Noctes Ambrosianæ" we find the following:--"I never, at any time o' the year, had recourse to the cruet till after the lang hunder; and in September, after four months' fast frae the creturs, I can easily devour them by theirsels, just in their ain liccor, ontill anither fifty; and then, to be sure, just when I am beginning to be a wee stawed, I apply first the pepper to a squad; and then, after a score or twa in that way, some dizzen and a half wi' vinegar, and finish off, like you, wi' a wheen to the mustard, till the brodd is naething but shells.... There's really no end in nature to the eatin' of eisters."
Oyster-fishing is pursued in many different ways in different countries. Round Minorca, divers descend, hammer in hand, and bring up as many as they can carry. On the English and French coasts a most destructive process is employed; a dredge-net, heavily weighted with an iron frame, is thrown overboard; it tears off a number of the precious bivalves from the bottom, and leaves a larger number buried in the mud. "In France," says Figuier, "oyster-dredging is conducted by fleets of thirty or forty boats, each carrying four or five men. At a fixed hour, and under the surveillance of a coastguard in a pinnace bearing the national flag, the flotilla commences the fishing. In the estuary of the Thames the practice is much the same, although no official surveillance is observed. Each bark is provided with four or five dredges, each resembling in shape a common clasp purse. These dredges are formed of network, with a strong iron frame, the iron frame serving the double purpose of acting as a scraper and keeping the mouth open, while giving a proper pressure as it travels over the oyster-beds.... The tension of the rope is the signal for hauling in, and very heterogeneous are the contents of the dredge--seaweeds, star- fishes, lobsters, crabs, actinia, and stones. In this manner the common oyster-beds on both sides of the Channel were ploughed up by the oyster- dredger pretty much as the ploughman on shore turns up a field." The consequence was that the fields became nearly exhausted. This led to the scientific cultivation now in vogue, which has proved most thoroughly successful in a commercial point of view.