culch n, also attrib Also sp cultch
1 also cu(t)ch, clutch: Loose, solid material naturally occurring or deliberately set out on oyster beds for larval oysters to attach themselves to; occas as a count n, a piece of such material. [OED2 culch, cultch n. 2 1667→; the form clutch is evidently by association with clutch grasp; cf quot 1883.]
[1790 Gazette U.S. (NY NY) 3 Apr [4]/3, In the month of May the oysters cast their spawn; . . it cleaves to stones, and other matters at the bottom of the sea, which is called culch. [DARE Ed: The article, entitled “Oysters,” is an unacknowledged paraphrase of an account first published in 1667 (in T. Sprat’s History of the Royal Society) about oystering in Colchester, Essex, where the word in question appears as cultch.] 1859 NY Ag. Soc. Trans. for 1858 18.396, I have made two artificial beds of them [=oysters] in the Hudson river. . . When it is desirable to propagate oysters, the stones and cultch having them attached are removed to the selected location and planted. 1881 Ingersoll Oyster-Industry 243, Cultch.—The shells, gravel, fragments of brick, or any other material placed in the water to catch the spawn of the oyster. Ibid, Cutch.—An American spelling of cultch. [1883 Sun (Baltimore MD) 29 Sept suppl 1/7, It is also proposed . . that a portion of the bottom of the bay be improved by dressing it with oyster shells. This will give the spat something to clutch as it drifts over the bottom.] 1891 U.S. Fish Comm. Bulletin for 1889 9.476 CT, It is probable that gravel is as desirable a material for the “clutch” as anything yet used in Long Island Sound. [Footnote to clutch:] This term, imported from Europe, has been changed from “cutch” or “cultch,” to clutch. It is applied to stones, pieces of brick, gravel, shells, etc., to which young oysters can attach themselves. 1907 Gulf Biologic Sta. Bulletin 8.47 LA, On a moderately hard bottom, clutch may be applied without any previous preparation. 1937 Daily Olympian (Olympia WA) 8 Oct 1/4, During the past few years, Steele said, some new emthods [sic] of catching seed oysters have been used by a number of growers. One is a cultch consisting of a crate similar to an egg case filler which is dipped into cement. The cement is then allowed to harden and the cultch is place in the water just at the time the baby oysters are ready to attach themselves. 1950 AmSp 25.151 Puget Sound WA, The Washington State Shellfish Laboratory biologists in their Bulletin issued weekly during the spawning and setting season spell the word cultch. But the oyster farmers, obviously influenced by the similar automotive term, now call it the clutch. 1958 Sun (Baltimore MD) 15 July 16/4, [Letter:] A few of us persistently but futilely tried to have Captain Robertson’s claims for steel slag as an ideal oyster cultch given the acid testing. 1976 Warner Beautiful Swimmers 88 Chesapeake Bay, This is because there is no better “cultch” or hard surface for the spat to strike on than another oyster. 1980 San Luis Obispo Co. Telegram–Tribune (San Luis Obispo CA) 8 May sec A 10/1, The seed is purchased attached to a mother shell, known as a clutch. . . Thirty cases of oyster clutches are enough to seed 1 acre in the bay, Johnson explained. 1993 Winston-Salem Jrl. (NC) 1 Mar 4/4, He really farms for oysters, cultivating his “garden” each year by dumping old oyster shells—“cultch,” which the oystermen pronounce as “clutch”—on it. 2021 Star–Democrat (Easton MD) 12 Nov sec A 5/, The Oyster Management Review . . shows in the past five years . . decreases in clutch, which is material for oyster spat to cling to. 2024 Boston Globe (MA) 30 Aug sec A 1/3, Instead of remaining in the waste stream, the aged shells (called cultch) are eventually deposited in Wellfleet Harbor and Yarmouth’s Bass River, Smith said. This creates new habitat for juvenile oysters.
2 Junk, trash; also fig. [sEngl dial; cf OED2 culch, cultch n. 1 1736→, EDD culch sb. 1] chiefly eNEng, esp ME Cf sculch n
1856 New Engl. Farmer (Boston MA) 13 Sept 1/5, To prevent wetting their feet, the “women folks” have carried down pieces of board . . to step on. They have lain rotting in the stagnant water for years, and with other “culch” mixed among them. 1873 U.S. Bur. Fisheries Rept. 1871–1872 1.136 seNH, I notice that all the print-works, dye-houses, and factories discharge into the water tons of dyes, poison culch, in fact, everything which ought to be buried, such as copperas and other chemicals. 1881 Youth’s Companion 54.506/3 NEng, Decent folk warnt goin’ ter hev their children druv and jawed on account of no Finnegans, which was cultch of the town. 1890 Jrl. Amer. Folkl. 3.64 ME, MA, Culch.—A domestic in my household, from Maine, uses this word as a synonym for rubbish,—“To sweep away all that culch.” . . “Old culch“ is used in connection with stuff, household goods, etc., which are valueless. Thus, if a house was pretty shabbily furnished, we would say (in Salem, Mass.), “They had nothing in the house but a mess of old culch,” or , if in a store the dealer had brought out the old stock with the new, we might say the greater part of the stock was “a mess of old culch.” 1891 Jrl. Amer. Folkl. 4.159 neMA, Culch.—This word, when applied to human beings, has a secondary sense of disgust. “He’s a mean old culch!” The epithet is the worst which can be used. 1909 DN 3.410 nME, Culch. . . Refuse. 1913 DN 4.1 swME, Culch. . . Rubbish. “That’s nothing but culch.” 1926 DN 5.386 ME, Cultch. . . Refuse of any sort; a litter; superfluous material; Sweepings. Universal. 1941 LANE Map 346 (Rubbish) [Culch is reported from nearly all locations in ME, and is fairly common also in neVT, NH, and eMA.] 1950 Moore Candlemas Bay 126 ME, What a rude ignorant woman! she thought. And Candace was thinking, Common cultch! 1951 PADS 15.66 NH, Culch. . . Junk, trash. 1952 Brown NC Folkl. 1.531, Culch. . . Clean rubbish—paper, strings, cloth, etc. 1959 VT Hist. new ser 27.131, Culch. c1965 DARE FW Addit nNH (as of 1920s), We always had a culch box around. Neither rubbish nor junk. A box of odds and ends, pieces of useable wire, bolts with no nuts to fit or vice versa, empty spools, wooden or metal, string, fish line. . . in fact anything that a fertile imagination and a Jack-of-all-trades could imagine might possibly be used. 1975 Gould ME Lingo 66, Children may be told to pick up their culch and get to bed. Reading matter in bad taste is culch. Po’ white trash can be culch. A poor cook’s unsavory offering is culch. Silly speech is culch. Many times Maine attics have yielded culch which antique buyers are happy to pay for. 2012 Bangor Daily News (ME) 15 Apr (Internet), Most Maine kitchens have a “cultch drawer,” which is typically where you ‘pitch’ items into (in a haphazard manner) that don’t really belong anywhere else.