Lol Pattye- I agree!


Importance of the Irritant
. . . After about five years of cultivation, necessitating almost daily surveillance of the oyster cages, the oysters are raised for the last time and opened.

This info is incredibly out of date (but good to know when hunting for vintage Akoya)- modern farmers very rarely leave their pearls in the oyster for longer than 18 to 24 months these days (and often, less than that ), and the reduced growth times have been trending short for decades...