The oyster; a popular summary of a scientific study

OF THE

UNIVERSITY

OF

f

THE OYSTER

THE OYSTER

A POPULAR SUMMARY OF A SCIENTIFIC STUDY

BY

WILLIAM K. BROOKS, PH.D., LL. D.

Henry Walters Professor of Zoology, in the Johns Hopkins University

SECOND AND REVISED EDITION

B ALTIMORE

THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

1905

COPYRIGHT, 1905,
BY THE JOHNS HOPKINS PRESS

THE FRIEDENWALD COMPANY
BALTIMORE, MD.

PREFACE.

The first edition of this book was written in 1890 at
the suggestion of President Oilman and other citizens
of Baltimore, and it was published by the Johns Hop-
kins University in 1891, in the hope that it might help
to bring about a practical and judicious system of
oyster farming in Maryland, and the development and
improvement of the natural resources of our waters, by
an account of the way in which the structure and habits
of the oyster fit it for cultivation as a submarine agri-
cultural product.

To-day, fifteen years after the book was written, the
oyster grounds of Virginia and North Carolina, and
those of Georgia and Louisiana, are increasing in value,
and many of our packing houses are being moved to the
south, but there is no oyster farming in Maryland, and
our oyster beds are still in a state of nature, affording a
scanty and precarious livelihood to those who depend
upon them.

Since the facts and reflections which the first edition
contained are as instructive now as they were fifteen
years ago, no essential change in the book seems to be

vi PREFACE.

necessary, and most of the new matter refers to minor
points. To this there is one exception. I have added
to the account of the structure of the oyster a section
upon its peculiar fitness for gathering up the germs of
cholera and typhoid fever and transmitting them to
man, since the importance of clear ideas upon this sub-
ject increases with the growth of the cities and towns
upon the shores of the Bay and its tributaries, and with
the increasing danger of the pollution of the oyster area
by sewage. The section upon this important subject is
the most notable addition to this edition.

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,
March 25, 1905.

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EDITION.

This book (for which I have been asked to write an
introductory note) is written for the information of all
who care for oysters, — no matter whether their point
of view be that of providers or consumers, — of the
oysterman, the money-maker, the housekeeper, the
legislator, the editor, or the student of natural history.
So well is the book written that many parts of it are as
fascinating as a story.

The facts that have led to its preparation are these.
After many years of plenty, Maryland is in danger
of an oyster famine. The supplies which nature be-
stows most bountifully have been so treated that
scarcity now takes the place of abundance, anxiety and
alarm have followed security. Authentic figures show-
ing the decline and fall of the oyster empire of the
Chesapeake, startle all who consider them. It is not
only the dredgers, the dealers, the shuckers, the
packers, the coopers, the tinners, and the carriers, that
are to suffer if this state of affairs continues, every-
body in Maryland will likewise suffer more or less.
An important article of food, that should be as plentiful

viii INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EDITION.

as it is excellent, will grow more scarce, and a branch
of industry will be cut off, which employs a large
amount of labor and of capital and so contributes to
the welfare of the State, the region, and the country.
The interior as well as the seaboard, the farmer as well
as the oysterman, will be injured unless some remedy
is found.

The author of this volume is well known in all^
scientific circles as an accurate, clear-sighted and trust-
worthy observer. His papers are received and quoted
by the best authorities in every place where the study
of natural history is carried on. Not only can he see
with his trained eye and powerful glasses, more than
most people, but he can state distinctly and without
any deviation from the exact truth, what he sees, and
what he thinks of what he sees. His life has been
devoted to the careful observation of the forms and
changes of form in living beings.

To the study of the oyster he has devoted a large
part of his time for more than ten years past, having
been encouraged to do so by the Johns Hopkins
University, in which he is an honored professor, and
by the legislature of the State of Maryland, which he
served as an oyster commissioner in 1883-4. He can
hold his own not only among naturalists, but also
among practical men. He has dredged in every part

INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EDITION. ix

of the bay. To use his own words, he has tonged
oysters in five different States ; in the warm waters of
the South, he has spent months under the broiling
tropical sun, wading over the sharp shells which cut
the feet like knives, studying the oysters " at home."
He has planted oysters ; he has reared them by collect-
ing the floating spat; and he has hatched from artifi-
cially fertilized eggs more oysters than there are
inhabitants of the United States. More than this, he
has diligently studied the experience of other States
and countries and has gathered up the knowledge of
the world in respect to the life of the oyster, its ene-
mies and its needs, its dangers and its protections.
The people of Maryland may rejoice that in just this
crisis, the State has the service of such a citizen, ready
without any reservations and without any expectations
of reward, to give his hard-earned knowledge to the
public.

But the author has another claim to be heard. He
is governed by common-sense. The difficulty that
he sees is summed up in a single sentence that he
prints in capital letters, THE DEMAND FOR CHESAPEAKE

OYSTERS HAS OUTGROWN THE NATURAL SUPPLY. The

remedy he proposes is to increase the supply by artifi-
cial means. To show what is possible for the propaga-
tion and protection of young oysters, he describes in

x INTRODUCTION TO FIRST EDITION.

the most interesting manner, in terms scientific enough
to be accurate, not so scientific as to be hard of under-
standing, the life-history of the bivalve. The oyster's
exposure to infantile dangers, its preferred home, its
dietary habits, its susceptibility of culture, its wonder-
ful fecundity, are vividly portrayed. Indeed, this
modest volume is at once a memoir in natural history
and a chapter of political economy.

DANIEL C. OILMAN.

Office of the President of the

JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,
April 14, 1891-

INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION.

The scientific and practical study of the American
oyster by the Johns Hopkins University began in 1878
with the discovery by Professor Brooks that the Amer-
ican oyster, unlike that of northern Europe, breeds its
young by throwing the eggs out into the water, where
fertilization and development take place. He was the
first to fertilize the eggs artificially and to study the
development of the embryo ; and he pointed out the
practical bearing of his discoveries on the propagation
of the oyster. A medal was awarded to him for this
work by the " Societe d'Acclimatation " (Paris) in
1881.

In 1882 he was appointed by the Governor of Mary-
land a " Commissioner to examine the oyster beds, and
to advise as to their protection and improvement ; " and
after two years of investigation of the area where
oysters are to be found in Maryland, he submitted a
report, in 1884, in which the causes of the deterioration
of the beds are discussed, and recommendations made
for their restoration and development.

Realizing the general need for more accurate knowl-
edge about the oyster and its possibilities in Maryland,
he published, in 1891, a popular treatise on the various
phases of the oyster question, called " The Oyster."

xii INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION.

Many of Professor Brooks's students have carried
on scientific investigations of the life of the oyster, and
three have been called upon for practical work in Mary-
land and elsewhere.

In 1896, Dr. H. McE. Knciwer was employed to
make a biological examination of a site for an exten-
sive oyster farm, and to report, to those who were
interested, the results of his examination.

In 1899, Dr. Caswell Grave was employed by the U.
S. Fish Commission and by the Geological Survey of
North Carolina to make a biological examination of
the oysters and oyster beds of North Carolina, and,
later, to carry on experiments in oyster culture, and to
establish an experimental oyster farm. Dr. Grave has
devoted three years to this work, and the oyster beds
which he has established in the vicinity of Beaufort,
N. C., are now open to the public and are supplying
oysters for the market. An account of his investiga-
tions and experiments was published in 1904.

Dr. O. C. Glaser, who assisted Dr. Grave in his ex-
periments, was employed in 1903 by the Geological
Survey of Louisiana to take charge of the Gulf Bio-
logical Station, and to carry on experiments in oyster
culture in the Gulf of Mexico. An account of his ex-
periments was published in 1904.

IRA REMSEN.

Office of the President of the
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY,
March 25, 1905.

A list of the more important of the papers that deal
with the oyster, which have been published by investi-
gators who have been connected with the Johns Hop-
kins University:

By PROFESSOR W. K. BROOKS.

1. The Development of the Oyster. Studies Biol.

Lab. J. H. U., 1880.

2. The Acquisition and Loss of Food Yolk in Mol-

luscan Eggs. Studies Biol. Lab. J. H. U.,
1880.

3. Observations upon the Artificial Fertilization of

Oyster Eggs, and on the Embryology of the
American Oyster. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist.,
London, 1880.

4. The Biology of the American Oyster. N. C. Med.

Press, 1880.

5. Report of the Oyster Commission of the State of

Maryland. Annapolis, 1884.

6. Oyster Farming in North Carolina. Forest and

Stream, New York, 1885.

7. On the Artificial Propagation and Cultivation of

the Oyster in Floats. J. H. U. Circular, 1885.

8. The Oyster. J. H. U. Press, 1891.

9. Maryland: Its Resources, Industries, and Insti-

tutions. The Oyster. Baltimore, 1893.
10. The Axis of Symmetry of the Ovarian Egg of
the Oyster. In press.

xiv IMPORTANT PAPERS.

By PROFESSOR J. P. LOTSY.

11. The Food of the Oyster, Clam, and Ribbed Mus-

sel. Bull. U. S. Fish. Com. 1893.
By DR. H. L. OSBORN.

12. The Structure and Growth of the Shell of the

Oyster. Studies Biol. Lab. J. H. U., 1883.
By DR. H. McE. KNOWER.

13. Maryland: Its Resources, Industries, and Insti-

tutions. The Oyster Industry. Baltimore,
1893.
By DR. CASWELL GRAVE.

14. The Oyster Reefs of North Carolina. A Geo-
logical and Economic Study. J. H. U. Circular, 1901.

15. A Report of Work Carried on for the Develop-

ment of the Oyster Industry of North Caro-
lina. Bull. U. S. Fish. Commission, 1904.
By DR. O. C. GLASER.

1 6. Some Experiments on the Growth of Oysters.

Science, April, 1903.

17. The Conditions for Oyster Culture at Calcasieu

Pass. May, 1904.

1 8. Observations and Experiments on the Growth of

Oysters. Bull. U. S. Fish Commission, Dec.,
1904.
By DR. J. L. KELLOGG.

19. Notes on the Food Molluscs of Louisiana. 1905.
By DR. J. H. TENNENT.

20. Feeding Experiments for Determining the Life

History of an Oyster Parasite. March, 1905.

21. Life History of the Oyster Parasite, Bucephalus.

In press.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE

INTRODUCTION, v

I. THE POSSIBILITIES OF OYSTER CULTURE, ... i

II. THE ANATOMY OF THE OYSTER, 15

III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OYSTER, .... 41

IV. THE ARTIFICIAL CULTIVATION OF OYSTERS, . . 69
V. A TALK ABOUT OYSTERS, 198

VI. THE REMEDY, 207

VII. THE CAUSE OF THE DECLINE OF OUR OYSTER IN-
DUSTRY, AND THE PROTECTION OF OUR NAT-
URAL BEDS, 145

THE OYSTER

CHAPTER I.

THE POSSIBILITIES OF OYSTER CULTURE.

The citizen of Maryland gives to the oyster a high
place in the list of our resources. The vast number
of oysters which the Chesapeake Bay has furnished in
the past is ample proof of its fertility, but it is difficult
to give any definite statement as to its value. Statistics,
even in recent years, are scanty and doubtful, and it is
not possible to estimate the number of oysters which
our beds have furnished to our people with any accu-
racy, although it may be computed, approximately,
from indirect evidence. The business of packing
oysters for shipment to the interior was estab-
lished in Maryland in 1834, and from that date to
quite recent years it has grown steadily and .con-
stantly, and, though small and insignificant at first, it
has kept pace with the development of our country,
the growth of our population, and the improvement
of means for transportation. For fifty-six years the
bay has furnished the oysters to meet this constantly
increasing demand. The middle of this period is the

2 THE OYSTER.

year 1862, and as the greatest development of the
business has taken place since, the business of 1862
may be used as an average for the whole period,
with little danger of error through excess. We have
4 no statistics for 1862, but in 1865 C. S. Maltby made
a very careful computation of the oyster business of
the whole bay for the year. He says there were 1000
boats engaged in dredging and 1500 canoes engaged
in tonging. The dredgers gathered 3,663,125 bushels
of oysters in Maryland and 1,083,209 bushels in Vir-
ginia, while 1,216,375 bushels were tonged in Maryland
and 981,791 bushels in Virginia, or 6,954,500 bushels
in all. About half of these were sent to Baltimore,
and the rest to the following cities in the following
order: Washington, Alexandria, Boston, Fair Haven,
New York, Philadelphia, Seaford, and Salisbury. Of
the 3,465,000 bushels which came to Baltimore, 625,000
were consumed in the city and its vicinity, while
2,840,000 bushels were shipped to a distance by Balti-
more packers. Ten years later the harvest of oysters
from the bay had increased to 17,000,000 bushels,
and it has continued to increase, year after year, up
to the last few years. We may safely regard the
harvest of 1865 as an approximation to the annual
average for the whole period of fifty-six years, and
other methods of computation give essentially the
same result.

The total harvest of oysters from the Chesapeake
Bay since the establishment of the packing houses is
therefore about 56 times 7,000,000, or 392,000,000

THE OYSTER. 3

bushels, and the local consumption along the shores
of the bay brings the grand total fully up to four
hundred million bushels.

This inconceivably vast amount of delicate, nutri-
tious food has been yielded by our waters without
any aid from man. It is a harvest that no man has
sown ; a gift from bounteous nature.

The fact that our waters have withstood this enor-
mous draft upon them, and have continued for more
than half a century to meet our constantly increasing
demands, is most conclusive evidence of their fertility
and value ; and the citizens of Maryland and Virginia
might well point with pride to the boundless resources
of our magnificent bay, were it not for two things.

First of these is the fact, which for many years we
strove to hide even from ourselves, that our indiffer-
ence and lack of foresight, and our blind trust in our
natural advantages, have brought this grand inherit-
ance to the verge of ruin. Unfortunately this is now
so clear that it can no longer be hidden from sight
nor explained away, and every one knows that, proud
as our. citizens once were of our birthright in our
oyster-beds, we will be unable to give to our children
any remnant of our patrimony unless the whole oyster
industry is reformed without delay.

We have wasted our inheritance by improvidence
and mismanagement and blind confidence ; but even
if our beds had held their own and were to-day as
valuable as they were fifty years ago, this would be no
just ground for satisfaction, in this age of progress, to

4 THE OYSTER.

a generation which has seen all our other resources
developed and improved.

Four hundred million bushels of oysters is a vast
quantity, and it testifies to the immeasurable value of
our waters ; but every one who has studied the subject,
either on its scientific side or in the light of the ex-
perience of other countries, knows that the harvest of
oysters from our bay has never, even at its best, made
any approach to what it might have been if we had
aided the bounty of nature by human industry and
intelligence. The four hundred million bushels is the
wild crop which has been supplied by nature, without
any aid from man, and it compares with what we might
have obtained from our waters in about the same way
that the nuts and berries which are gathered in our
swamps and forests compare with the harvest from our
cultivated fields and gardens and orchards.

When we have learned to make wise use of our
opportunities, and when the oyster-beds of the bay
have been brought to perfection, a harvest of four
hundred million bushels in half a century will not be
regarded as evidence of fertility.

It will take many years of labor to bring the whole
bay under thorough cultivation, and will require a
great army of industrious and skillful farmers, and
great sums of money ; but the expense and labor will
be much less than an equal area of land above water
requires. While it may be far away, the time will
surely come when the oyster harvest each year will be
fully equal to the total harvest of the last fifty years,

THE OYSTER. 5

and it will be obtained without depleting or exhaust-
ing the beds, and without exposing the laborers to
harships or unusual risk.

This is not the baseless speculation of an idle fancy.
Our opportunities for rearing oysters are unparalleled
in any other part of the world. In another place I
have shown that, in other countries, much less valuable
grounds have, by cultivation, been made to yield oysters
at a rate per acre which, on our own great beds, would
carry our annual harvest very far beyond the sum
of all the oysters which have ever been used by the
packers of Maryland and Virginia.

This is capable of proof by the evidence of other
countries, but I wish to show now that it is proved
with equal conclusiveness by the natural history of the
oyster.

The Chesapeake Bay is one of the richest agricul-
tural regions of the earth, and its fertility can be com-
pared only with that of the valleys of the Nile and the
Ganges and other great rivers. It owes its fertility to
the very same causes as those which have enabled the
Nile valley to support a dense human population for
untold ages without any loss of fertility ; but it is
adapted for producing only one crop, the oyster.

All human food is vegetable in its origin, and
whether we eat plants and their products directly, or
use beef, mutton, pork, fowls or eggs as food, it all
carries us back to the vegetable kingdom ; for if there
were no plants, all animals would starve at once.
Every one knows that this is absolutely true of all ter-

6 THE OYSTER.

restrial animals, and all naturalists know that it is
equally true of sea-food. The blue-fish preys on
smaller fishes ; many of these on still smaller ones ;
these in their turn upon minute Crustacea ; these upon
still smaller animals ; and these pasture on the micro-
scopic plants which swarm at the surface of the ocean.
However long the chain may be, all animals, those of
the water as well as those of the land, depend on plants
for food, although most of the vegetable life of the
ocean is of such a character that its existence is known
only to naturalists.

If there were no plants all animals would starve, for
no animal is a direct food-producer. It can furnish
nothing except what has come to it from plants.

Now, for the purposes of animal life a small plant
is as effective as a large one, since however small it
may be, it still has the power, which is possessed by no
animal, to gather up the inorganic matter of the earth,
and to turn it into vegetable matter fit for the nourish-
ment of animals. Microscopic plants can do this work
as well as great forests of lofty trees, if they are
numerous enough, for size counts for nothing.

Every one knows that the sea is rich in animal life ;
that it contains great banks covered with cod and had-
dock ; miles and miles of water crowded full of mack-
erel and herring, and great monsters of the deep such
as the whales and sharks. To the superficial observer
the vegetation of the sea appears to be very scanty,
and, except for the fringe of sea-weeds along the shore,
the great ocean seems, so far as plant life is concerned,

THE OYSTER. 7

to be a barren desert. If it be true that all animals
depend on plants for their food, the vegetation of the
ocean seems totally inadequate for the support of its
animal life.

The microscope shows that its surface swarms with
minute plants, most of them of strange forms, totally
unlike any which are familiar; for they have nothing
in common with the well known trees and herbs and
grasses of the land except the power to change inor-
ganic matter into food which is fit for animals.

Most of these plants are so small that they are abso-
lutely invisible to the unaided eye, and even when they
are gathered together in a mass, it looks like slimy
discolored water and presents no traces of structure.
They seem too insignificant to play any important
part in the economy of nature, but the great monsters
of the deep, beside which the elephant and the ox and
the elk are small, owe their existence to these micro-
scopic plants.

Their vegetative power is wonderful past all expres-
sion. Among land plants, corn, which yields seed
about a hundredfold in a single season, is the emblem
of fertility, but it has been shown that a single marine
plant, very much smaller than a grain of mustard seed,
would fill the whole ocean solid in less than a week,
if all its descendants were to live.

This stupendous fact is almost incredible, but it is
capable of rigorous demonstration, and it must be
clearly grasped before we can understand the life of
the ocean. As countless minute animals are con-

8 THE OYSTER.

stantly pasturing upon them, the multiplication of
these plants is kept in check ; but in calm weather it is
no rare thing to find great tracts of water many miles
in extent packed so full of them that the whole surface
is converted into a slimy mass, which breaks the waves
and smooths the surface like oil. The so-called " black
water " of the Arctic and Antarctic oceans, the home
and feeding ground of the whale, has been shown by
microscopic examination to consist of a mass of these
plants crowded together until the whole ocean is dis-
colored by them. Through these seas of " black
water " roam the right whales, the largest animals on
earth, gulping at each mouthful hundreds of gallons
of the little mollusca and Crustacea which feed on the
plants.

In tropical seas, ships sometimes sail for days
through great floating islands of this surface vegeta-
tion, and the Red Sea owes its name to the coloration
of its water by great swarms of microscopic organisms
which are of a reddish tinge. The plant life of the
ocean is ample for the support of all its animal life, just
as the vegetation of the land gives a maintenance to all
terrestrial animals.

The source of the food of animals is the vegetable
world. What is the source of the food of plants ?

Most of it consists of mineral matter, derived from
the crust of the earth ; but before this can be used by
plants it must be dissolved in water. The solid rocks
cannot maintain life until they have been ground down
and dissolved, and in the form of frost and rain, water

THE OYSTER. 9

is continually breaking down and wearing away the
hard rocks, and carrying the fragments down to lower
levels to form the fertile land of the hillsides and
valleys and meadows. As the roots of the plants
penetrate this loose material they gather up the mineral
food which is dissolved by the rain, and convert it into
their own substance, and as their leaves fall and their
trunks decay, the decaying vegetable matter gradually
builds up the leaf-mould and the meadow-loam which
are so well adapted for supporting vegetable life.
Each year, however, the heavy rains wash great quan-
tities of this light, rich soil into the rivers, which in
times of flood cut into their banks and carry the arable
land, which has been built up so slowly, down to lower
levels, until at last it finds its way to the ocean and is
lost, so far as its use to man is concerned.

In a long, flat river-valley it may be arrested for a
time, so that man may make use of it, but its final
destination is the ocean, and as this has already been
enriched by the washings through untold ages, all
that is most valuable for the support of life is now dis-
solved in its waters, or deposited upon its bottom,
where man can make no use of it.

We love to dream of the shipwrecked treasures
which lie among the bones of the sailors on the sea-
bottom ; of the galleons sunk and lost with their pre-
cious cargoes of bullion and jewels from the treasure-
chambers of the Incas and the palaces of Asia ; but all
these, and all the " gems of purest ray serene, the
dark, unfathom'd caves of ocean bear " ; all the thous-
3

10 THE OYSTER.

ands of tons of gold and silver which, as chemists tell
us, the sea holds dissolved in its water, — all these are
as nothing when compared with these precious wash-
ings from the land of all that fits it for supporting life.

Man will some time assert his dominion over the
fishes of the sea, and will learn to send out flocks and
herds of domesticated marine animals to pasture and
fatten upon the vegetable life of the ocean and to
make its vast wealth of food available, but at present
we are able to do little more than to snatch a slight
tribute from the stream of nutritive material which is
flowing down into the ocean, as it comes to temporary
rest in the valleys of our great rivers.

Every one knows the part which these great river-
valleys have played in human civilization. In the
valley of the Nile, of the Tigris, and of the Ganges
we find the most dense populations; here were the
great cities of the past; here agriculture and architec-
ture were developed, and here art, literature and
science had their birth.

We owe to the great river-valleys, where the natural
fertility of the soil has lightened the struggle for
bread and has afforded leisure for higher matters, all
that is most distinctive of civilized man.

The Chesapeake Bay is a great river- valley ; not as
large as that of the Nile or Ganges, but of enough con-
sequence to play an important part in human affairs,
and to support in comfort and prosperity a population
as great as that of many famous states. It receives
the drainage of a vast area of fertile land stretching

THE OYSTER. II

over the meadows and hillsides of nearly one-third of
New York, and nearly all of the great agricultural
states of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. The
most valuable part of the soil of this great tract of
farming land, more than forty million acres in area,
ultimately finds its way to the bay, in whose quiet
waters it makes a long halt on its journey to the ocean,
and it is deposited, all over the bay, in the form of fine,
light, black sediment, known as oyster-mud.

This is just as valuable to man, and just as fit to
nourish plants, as the mud which settles every year on
the wheat fields and rice fields of Egypt. It is a
natural fertilizer of inestimable importance, and it is so
rich in organic matter that it putrefies in a few hours
when exposed to the sun. In the shallow waters of
the bay, under the influence of the warm sunlight, it
produces a most luxuriant vegetation; but with few
exceptions, the plants which grow upon it are micro-
scopic and invisible, and their very existence is un-
known to all except a few naturalists. They are not
confined like land plants to the surface of the soil, and
while they are found in great abundance on the surface
of the mud, they are not restricted to it, for their food is
diffused in solution through the whole body of water,
and the mud itself is so light that it is in a state of
semi-suspension, and the little plants have ample room
among its particles.

On land, the plant-producing area is a surface, but
the total plant-producing acreage of the bay is many
times greater than the superficial area of its bottom.

12 THE OYSTER.

As the little plants are bathed on all sides by food,
they do not have to go through the slow process of
sucking it up through roots and stems, and they grow
and multiply at a rate which has no parallel in ordinary
familiar plants. They would quickly choke up the
whole bay if they were not held in check; but their
excessive increase is prevented by countless minute
animals which feast upon them and turn the plant
substance into animal matter, to become in their turn
food for larger animals. As a matter of fact, they are
not very abundant, but there is no difficulty in finding
them in any part of the bay, by straining the water
through a fine cloth. In this way we obtain a fine sedi-
ment, which is shown by the microscope to consist
almost entirely of them.

The variety of these microscopic plants and animals
is very great, and a series of big volumes would be
needed to describe the microscopic flora and fauna of
the bay. Most of them occur in other waters as well,
but many are peculiar to the bay, which is an excep-
tionally favored spot for their growth.

The exploration of this invisible world with a micro-
scope is an unfailing delight to the naturalist, but at
first sight it seems to have no particular bearing on
human life. The ability to turn inorganic mineral
matter into food for animals and for man does not
depend on size, and in this work the microscopic flora
of the bay is as efficient as corn or potatoes, but infi-
nitely more active and energetic.
^ In the oyster we have an animal, most nutritious

THE OYSTER. 13

and palatable, especially adapted for living in the
soft mud of bays and estuaries, and for gathering up
the microscopic inhabitants and turning them into
food for man.

The fitness of the oyster for this peculiar work — for
bringing back to us the mineral wealth which the rivers
steal from our hillsides and meadows — is so complete
and admirable, so marvellous and instructive, that it
cannot be comprehended in its complete significance,
without a thorough knowledge of the anatomy and
embryology of the oyster.

This book is not a scientific treatise ; its purpose is
practical, and it will aim at the treatment of its sub-
ject in its relations to practical ends ; but we cannot
fully appreciate the great possibilities of our bay
without something more than the vague and erro-
neous notions regarding the nature of the oyster which
are generally current.

The inestimable value of our inheritance in the
black mud of the bay has been pointed out, and it
now remains to show that the oyster is an animal
which has been especially evolved for life in this mud,
and that through its aid we may make our inheritance
available. A thorough knowledge of the oyster will
teach much more than this. It will show the capacity
of the oyster for cultivation, and it will also show why
its cultivation is necessary, and why our resources
can never be fully developed by oysters in a state of
nature. We have never enjoyed the hundredth part
of our advantage, nor can we ever do so if we continue

I4 THE OYSTER.

to rely upon nature alone; and this fact, which has
been proved again and again by statistics, is perfectly
clear to any one who knows what an oyster is, and
what are its relations to the world around it. As its
world is chiefly microscopic, no one can penetrate into
the secrets of its structure and history without training
in the technical methods of the laboratory; and busi-
ness contact with the oyster cannot possibly, with any
amount of experience, give any real insight into its
habits and mode of life.

I speak on this subject with the diffidence of one
who has been frequently snubbed and repressed; for
while I am myself sure of the errors of the man who
tonged oysters long before I was born, and who loudly
asserts his right to know all about it, it is easier to
acquiesce than to struggle against such overwhelming
ignorance, so I have learned to be submissive in the
presence of the elderly gentleman who studied the
embryology of the oyster when years ago as a boy he
visited his grandfather on the Eastern Shore, and to
listen with deference to the shucker as he demonstrates
to me at his raw-box, by the aid of his hammer and
shucking-knife, the fallacy of my notions of the struc-
ture of the animal.

Still I may be permitted to state that I am not totally
without experience. I have dredged oysters in every
part of the bay, from Swan Point and the Bodkin, to
Craney Island and Lynn Haven. I have tonged oys-
ters in five different States ; and in the warm waters of
the South, where frost is unknown and the oysters

THE OYSTER. 15

flourish above low-tide mark, I have enjoyed the oppor-
tunity to explore the natural beds, and have spent
months, under the broiling tropical sun, wading over
the sharp shells which cut the feet like knives ; I have
planted oysters ; reared them by collecting the floating
spat; I have hatched from artificially fertilized eggs
more oysters than the number of people in the last cen-
sus ; in the West Indies I have gathered at low water,
from a boat, the oysters upon the mangrove bushes
overhead; and I boldly claim enough practical exper-
ience to acquit me from the charge that my views are
theoretical.

CHAPTER II.

THE ANATOMY OF THE OYSTER.

The most prominent fact in the organization of the
oyster is its shell. Its body is shut in between two
long concave stony doors, which are made of lime-
stone, and are fastened together at one end, somewhat
in the same way that the covers of a long, narrow
check-book are bound together at the back. One of
these shells, the flat one, is on the right side of the
body, and the other, which is much deeper, on the
left. When oysters are fastened to each other or to
rocks, the left shell is attached, and the oyster lies on
its left side. When it is at home and undisturbed its
shell is open, so that the water circulates within it, but
when disturbed it shuts its shell with a snap, and is
able to keep it firmly closed for a long time. The
snapping drives out the water, together with any irri-
tating substances which may find their way in, and on
the natural beds the oysters snap their shells shut,
from time to time, for this purpose. The snapping is
popularly called feeding, but it is nothing of the kind.
It serves to drive food out instead of taking it in, and
so long as the shell is open a gentle current of water is
drawn in by a delicate piece of microscopic machinery

THE OYSTER. 17

which will be explained later on. The food of the
oyster consists of invisible organisms which float in
the water and are drawn in with it.

The apparatus for opening and closing the shell is
very interesting. If you were to open a check-book,
and were to wedge a piece of rubber between the
leaves, close to the back, it would form a spring, which
would be squeezed by closing the book, and would
open it again when released. A book with such a
spring would be open at all times, except when forci-
bly closed. Wedged in between the two shells of the
oyster, at their narrow ends, is an elastic pad, the
hinge-ligament, which acts in exactly the same way.
When the shell is forcibly closed the ligament is
squeezed, and it expands when it is released and thus
throws the free edges of the shells apart. The liga-
ment is not alive. It is formed, like the shell itself, as
an excretion from the living tissues of the oyster, and
its action is not under the control of the animal. It
keeps the shell open at all times, unless it is counter-
acted, and for this reason an oyster at rest and undis-
turbed, or a dead oyster, always has its shell open.

The active work of squeezing the passive ligament
and closing the shell is done by a large, powerful
muscle, made up of a bundle of contractile fibres which
run across the body between the shells, and are fastened
to their inner surfaces over the dark-colored spots
which are always to be seen on empty oyster shells.
The muscle is known to oyster-openers as the heart,
and they assure you that when this is cut, the vital

18 THE OYSTER.

point, the seat of the oyster's life, is reached and that
a wound here causes instant death. This is of course
an error, and cutting the muscle causes the shell to
open simply because it destroys the animal's power to
close it ; but a fresh oyster on the half-shell is no more
dead than an ox which has been hamstrung. Any
one who has struggled with an oyster-knife to force
open an obstinate thick-shelled specimen, knows the
great strength of this little muscle. It is said that
when fishermen are caught by the feet or hands
between the shells of the giant clam of the Pacific, they
never escape alive, but are held, as if by a vise, until
the tide rises and drowns them ; but firmly as the
muscle of the oyster holds the shell together, a little
skill is all that is needed to overcome it. Some years
ago, while on the State Oyster Commission, I stood
with my watch in my hand, in a Crisfield packing-
house, and timed a young man, who, with nothing but
a small thin knife, opened thirty oysters in a minute.
He worked with the precision of a machine, and made
six motions for each oyster. One hand took the oys-
ter from the pile at his side, the other cut the muscle
from the upper shell; a third movement threw the
shell away; a fourth forced the oyster from the other
shell ; a fifth threw it into a tin bucket, and the second
shell was thrown aside by the last movement. He was
very proud of his skill and of the prizes he had taken,
and although he seemed to have abundant assurance,
he explained that his movements were retarded by
his diffidence in the presence of state commissioners,

THE OYSTER. 19

and he said that, when free from embarrassment, he
could " shuck " thirty-six oysters a minute.

The work of closing the shell is done by the muscle,
but we must go very much farther in the study of the
oyster in order to find why it closes. It is opened by
the mechanical properties of the ligament, but the
cause of its closure cannot be the mechanical proper-
ties of the muscle, for these are just the same whether
it is open or at rest. Careful investigation shows the
existence of a wonderful apparatus, consisting of the
muscle which does the work, of nerves which connect
the muscle with the brain, of other nerves which run
to the more exposed parts of the oyster's body, and of
sense organs which are connected with the ends of
these sensory nerves, and serve to put the animal
into communication with the external world. Though
very much simpler, the mechanism is essentially like
that of our own bodies. The oyster's shell is lined by
a fleshy mantle, which is fringed by a border of dark-
colored sensory tentacles, which are partially exposed
when the shell is opened. The approach of danger is
perceived by these organs, which transmit a sensation
of danger along the sensory nerves to the brain, and
this in turn sends a nervous discharge along another
set of nerves to the muscle, and this shortens under
the stimulus and pulls the shells together and holds
them fast.

The contrast between the opening and the shutting of
the oyster's shell is an excellent illustration of the dif-
ference between vital activity and non-vital action. The

20 THE OYSTER.

explanation of the movement which opens the shell is
found in the physical properties of the ligament, and
a piece of rubber in the same place would produce the
same effect; but while the closure of the shell is un-
doubtedly due to the physical properties of the muscle,
we must carry our investigations very much farther
in order to find the reason for its action, for we must
learn what was the change, external to the oyster,
which excited the sense organs, and we must ask how
the oyster has learned to associate such a sensation
with the presence of danger, and how it has learned
that the danger may be escaped by closing the shell.

It is much more easy to ask this question than to
answer it. The oyster is by no means a simple animal,
and our efforts to study and understand its structure
bring us, at the first step, face to face with problems of
the most profound character ; problems which will tax
all the resources of investigators and philosophers for
many generations. We shall not enter into these deep
questions here, as we shall confine ourselves to simpler
matters.

The muscle is attached to the shell at some distance
from the hinge, in order that it may have leverage and
work to advantage; and it must therefore be able to
move as the shell grows, for in an oyster three inches
long its area of attachment is outside what was the
extreme border of the shell when this was only an
inch long. The muscle travels by the addition of new
fibres on its outer surface, as those on its inner border
are absorbed and removed. As it is moved, the old

THE OYSTER. 21

impression on the shell is gradually covered up by the
new deposits of lime, and, in an empty shell, it may be
traced for some distance up towards the hinge, where
it gradually becomes more faintly marked, as the layers
of new shell grow thicker. A very good idea of the
way the shell grows and keeps pace with the growth of
the body, may be gained by the careful examination of
the muscular impression on its inner surface.

Every fool knows why a snail has a house, but the
king could not tell how an oyster makes his shell. We
can now give a satisfactory answer to what will not,
I hope, be thought a fool's question : " Canst tell
how an oyster makes his shell ? " The shell, on each
side of the body, is lined by a thin, delicate, fleshy fold,
the mantle ; which may be compared to the outer leaf
on each side of the check-book, next the cover. It lies
close against the inside of the shell, and forms a deli-
cate living lining to protect the body and the gills, and
it is also the gland which makes the shell.

At all times, while the animal is alive, it is laying
down new layers of pearl over its whole inner surface,
and as each successive layer is a little larger in area
than the one before, the shell increases in size as well
as in thickness. In the oldest part of the shell, near
the hinge, there are many layers, and the shell is thick,
while the edge, which is new, is quite thin and sharp.
Each layer is very thin, hardly thicker than a sheet
of tissue paper, but the deposition of layer on layer
gradually results in a solid box of stone.

Shells which grow on rough, irregular surfaces con-

22 THE OYSTER.

form to their shape as perfectly as if they had been
moulded into the ridges and furrows, like soft clay.
An oyster growing in the neck of a bottle takes the
smooth, regular curve of the glass, and on the claw of
a crab an oyster shell sometimes follows all the angles
and ridges and spines, as if it were made of wax instead
of inflexible stone. Its apparent plasticity and the
mouldings of its surface are due to the flexibility of
the soft edge of the mantle. When the oyster is at
rest this protrudes a little beyond the edge of the shell,
so that each new layer is a little larger in area than
the last one. The soft mantle readily conforms to the
shape of the body to which the oyster is fastened,
and however irregular this may be, the new shell takes
its shape and closely adheres to it, because the new
deposits are laid down directly upon it.

This shows the error of the current belief that an old
oyster cannot fasten itself. Since the adhesion takes
place around the growing edge, an oyster may fasten
itself at any time ; and clusters of oysters are often
found with their shells soldered together near their tips.
Of course this can occur only after they are well
grown.

Oysters are able to close up broken places in their
shells, and most molluscs sometimes absorb and rebuild
parts of their shells. If any foreign body gets in be-
tween the shell and the mantle, shelly matter is
deposited upon it. The pearls of the pearl oyster
are formed in this way. Some small particle works
its way in, and forms a nucleus which is gradually

THE OYSTER. 23

covered by layer after layer of pearl. It has been
shown that, in some cases at least, the nucleus of a pearl
is the dead body of a microscopic parasite of the
mollusc. The brilliant lustre, as well as that of mother-
of-pearl, which is nothing but polished shell, is due to
the interference of light caused by the laminated struc-
ture.

It is said that the Chinese manufacture pearls, or
rather make the pearl oyster do the work for them, by
inserting strings of small shot between the shell and
the mantle. Did you ever see one of the sacred clam
shells which the Chinese Buddhists believe to have a
miraculous origin? They are often found in collec-
tions. The inside of the shell has a beautiful pearl
lustre, and along it is a row of little fat images of
Buddha, squatting with his legs crossed under him,
and his elbows on his knees : they are formed of pearl
precisely like that which lines the rest of the shell, a
little raised above its surface and outlined in faint relief,
but they are part of the shell, with no break nor joint.
In the process of manufacturing them, the shell of
the living animal is wedged open, and thin images,
punched out of a sheet . of bell-metal, are inserted.
The animal is then returned to the water, and is left
there until enough new shell has been formed to
cover them with a varnish of pearl thick enough to
fasten them, and to hide the metal, while permitting
the raised outline to be seen.

Several years ago it occurred to me that a series of
microscopic specimens of stages in the growth of the

24 THE OYSTER.

shell might be obtained in the same way, and that the
whole history of the process might be traced by study-
ing them. At my suggestion, one of my students
put into the shells of a number of oysters thin glass
circles, such as are used to cover microscopic speci-
mens. The oysters were then returned to the water,
and were left undisturbed until new shell began to be
formed on the glasses. These were then taken out and
studied under the microscope.

At the end of twenty- four hours the glass was found
to be covered by a transparent, faintly brown film of
thin gummy deposit, which exhibited no evidences of
structure, and contained no visible particles of lime,
although it effervesced when treated with acids, thus
showing that it contained particles too small to be
visible with a microscope. The gummy film is poured
out from the wall of the mantle, and in forty-eight
hours it forms a tough leathery membrane fastening
the glass cover over to the inside of the shell. At about
this time the invisible particles of lime begin to aggre-
gate and to form little flat crystals, hexagonal in out-
line and about ^V<j °f an mcn l°ng- The crystals
grow and unite into little bundles or groups, and new
ones appear between the old ones, until, at the ,end of
six days, the film has completely lost its leathery char-
acter and has become stony, from the great amount of
lime present in it. In three or four weeks the glass
cover is completely built into the shell and can no
longer be seen, and its place is only to be traced by
its form, which is perfectly preserved upon the inner

THE OYSTER. 25

surface of the shell. When broken out it is found to
be coated with a thick plate of white shell, which is
beautifully smooth and pearly upon the side nearest the
glass.

Microscopic examination of this plate shows that it
is made up of an immense number of minute crystals,
packed and crowded together into a solid mass, with-
out any regular arrangement. These observations
show that the new layers are thrown off in the form
of a gummy excretion from the mantle, with the lime
in solution, and that the particles unite with each other
and form crystals while the gum is hardening.

The oyster obtains the lime for its shell from the
water, and while the amount dissolved in each gallon
is very small, it extracts enough to provide for the
slow growth of the shell. It is very important that
the shell be built up as rapidly as possible, for the
oyster has many enemies continually on the watch for
thin-shelled specimens. In the lower part of the bay
I have leaned over a wharf and watched the sheeps-
head moving up and down with their noses close to
the piles, crushing the shells of the young oysters
between their strong jaws and sucking out the soft
bodies. As I have watched them I have seen the juices
from the bodies of the little oysters streaming down
from the corners of their mouths, to be swept away by
the tide.

The sooner a young oyster can make a shell thick
enough to resist such attacks the better, not only for
the oyster but for us also ; for once past this dangerous
4

26 THE OYSTER.

stage of development, there is a prospect that it may
live to complete its growth; though it is true that
the fully grown oyster has many enemies which either
crush the shell or pull it apart, or else bore holes
through it in order to reach the delicate flesh within.
At all times in its life its chance of survival is greatest
when the supply of lime is so abundant that it is able
to construct a thick, massive shell quickly. The rate of
growth of any animal must be regulated by the supply
of that necessary ingredient of its food which is least
abundant, as may be illustrated in many ways. To
run a locomotive the engineer must have fuel and
water and oil. He needs very little oil, but that little
he must have. After this is gone, an unlimited supply
of fuel and water will not help him. He must have
oil or stop. So, too, if he have plenty of oil and fuel,
but only a little water, he must stop as soon as the
water fails. In general, the amount of work he can
do is determined by his supply of that of which he has
least. If food in general is abundant while there is a
scarcity of one necessary article, growth can take place
only so fast as the scarce article can be procured. A
superfluity of other things is of no value, for it cannot
be utilized.

There are many reasons for believing that the growth
of oysters is limited by the supply of lime, and that
all the other necessary ingredients of their food are
so abundant that an increase in the supply of lime
would cause more rapid growth, greater safety from
enemies, and an increase in the number of oysters.

THE OYSTER. 27

All kinds of shelled molluscs grow more rapidly, and
reach a greater size, and have stronger and thicker
shells in coral seas, where the supply of lime is un-
limited, than in other waters. In some parts of the
Bahamas the large pink-lipped conch, the one which
we often see for sale in the fruit stores of Baltimore,
is so abundant that whole islands, large enough to be
inhabited, are entirely made up of the broken frag-
ments of these beautiful shells, which have been
pounded to pieces and heaped up by the waves.

The fresh-water mussels of our western rivers are
very large in limestone regions, and so abundant that
the bottom is almost paved with them, while in another
river, perhaps only a few miles away, but flowing
through a country where there is little lime, they are
few and very small, with thin, fragile shells.

If you turn over the old bones which are sometimes
found in the woods and fields, you will nearly always
find a number of snails which have been drawn to
them for the sake of the lime.

In order that the oyster may grow rapidly, and may
be securely protected from its enemies, it must have
lime. The lime in the water of the bay is derive'd in
great part from the springs of the interior, which, flow-
ing through limestone regions, carry some of it away
in solution, and finally carry it down the rivers and
into the bay. Some of it is no doubt derived from
deposits of rock in the bed of the ocean, and some from
the soil along the shores. The geologist tells us that
the limestone rock has all of it at one time been part

28 THE OYSTER.

of the bodies of living animals. Limestone is either
old reefs of fossil coral, or beds of extinct shells, or
the skeletons of other animals and plants which lived
in remote ages and stored up the lime from the ocean
at a time when it was more abundant than it is now.
The oyster gets the greater part of its lime from these
sources in this roundabout way, but a very considera-
ble portion is obtained in a much more direct way, by
the decomposition of old oyster shells.

We save up egg shells to feed laying hens, but we
recklessly waste our oyster shells, and treat them as if
they were of no value. Some are burned for lime;
some are used for making roads and wharves ; some are
used for filling in low land ; some are dumped in great
piles at convenient spots in the bay, where they sink
far down into the mud and are lost.

I shall soon show that there is another far more
important reason why they should be returned to the
beds, but their value as food for the oyster is very
great, and should lead us to return them to the beds.
On the oyster-beds an old shell is soon honeycombed
by boring sponges and other animals, and as soon as
the sea-water is thus admitted to its interior, it is
rapidly dissolved and diffused. In a few years nothing
is left. It has all gone back into a form which makes
it available as oyster food, and it soon begins its trans-
formation into new oyster shells. In this way the
oysters obtain some of their lime directly, without
being compelled to draw on the inland beds of ancient

THE OYSTER. 29

fossils, and this source of supply would be greatly
increased if all the shells could be returned to the beds.
The difference between the right and the left shells
of the oyster has a very profound significance, for in
science nothing is trivial or unimportant. Most of the
near relations of the oyster, like the clam and the
fresh-water mussel, have the two sides of the body, and
the two shells, alike. These animals are not fastened
nor stationary like the oyster. They move from place
to place in search of food, and their line of locomotion
lies in the plane which divides the body into halves.
They are erect and bilaterally symmetrical like other
locomotor animals, such as the horse, the fish, the
butterfly and the crab. The full-grown oyster has no
locomotor power and it lies on its left side, but in the
early part of its life it is very active, and is then bilat-
erally symmetrical like the clam. When it ceases
its wanderings and settles down for life, it topples
over, falls on its left side, and fastens itself by its left
shell, which soon grows deep and spoon-shaped, while
the right one becomes a flat movable lid. The body,
which was originally symmetrical, becomes distorted
or twisted to fit the difference in the shells, and
naturalists see in the fact that the locomotor relations
of the oyster are symmetrical through life, while the
oyster loses its symmetry as soon as it settles down,
one of the proofs that it is descended from locomotor
ancestors. There are many other proofs that this has
been its history, and that it has, in comparatively
modern times, learned to fasten itself to rocks above

30 THE OYSTER.

PLATE I.

FIGURE i. The left side of an oyster lying in one
shell, with the other shell removed. The mantle has
been turned back a little, to show its fringe of dark-col-
ored tentacles, and in order to expose the gills. The
part of the mantle which is turned back in this figure
marks the place where the current of water flows in to
the gills.

FIGURE 2. An oyster in the left shell, with the right
shell and right fold of the mantle removed, to show the
gills and the body of the oyster.

a is the hinge, b the edge of the mantle, c is the
muscle, d is the pericardium, / is the hinge ligament,
g the gills, h the lips.

THE OYSTER

PLATE 1

'

d

A.Hoen & CD.LithDcaustic.BatlimnrE .

THE OYSTER. 31

the soft mud of our bays and estuaries, in order to
avail itself of the rich vegetation ; that it has lost its
symmetry in order to fit it for this mode of life. The
oyster is a very ancient animal, and its sedentary habits
belong to the more modern part of its history ; although
this change took place very long ago, so far as human
chronology goes, for fossil oysters are found in many
parts of the world.

In order to understand the anatomy of the oyster, a
clear conception of the structure and significance of
its gill is most important. In all the bivalve mol-
luscs the gills are very complicated, and they domi-
nate the whole structure of the body in such a way
that an anatomical sketch of the animal is of necessity
little more than an account of the gills. A thorough
knowledge of the oyster-gill will not only throw light
on the purpose and use of all its other organs : it will
at the same time help us to understand the great value
of the animal as a means for making the microscopic
inhabitants of our waters useful, and it will also show
how well it is adapted for cultivation, and why it is
impossible for natural oysters to stock the whole bay
without aid from man.

The labor which is necessary before we can have a
clear, accurate picture of the gills ; of their complicated
structure; their relation to other parts of the body;
their use and their origin, is considerable, but it is
well worth while ; for the gills give us the key to the
whole significance of the oyster. The oyster's gill
cannot be understood without close attention to all the

32 THE OYSTER.

details of a long, complicated and minute description,
which from the nature of the case cannot be stated
briefly, although it may all be put in simple language.

A gill is, of course, a breathing organ, for aerating
the blood by exposing it to the oxygen in the water;
and the oyster has a heart for driving the blood which
has been purified in the gills to the various organs of
the body. It is easy to see and study the oyster's
heart, but in order to do so the animal must be opened
with great care, by cutting the muscle with a thin sharp
blade, as near the shell as possible. If this is done,
a small semi-transparent space will be seen close to the
inner edge of the muscle. The thin membrane which
covers the space is the pericardium, or the chamber
which holds the heart, Plate I, d, and through its
transparent wall this may be seen slowly pulsating ; for
an oyster is not killed by opening its shell, and its heart
continues to beat for hours, or, under favorable condi-
tions, for days. If the pericardium be gently lifted
and cut with sharp scissors, the heart, Plate II, d, with
its blood-vessels, will be exposed. It consists of two
chambers, the auricle, which receives the pure blood
from the gills, and the ventricle, which drives it
through arteries to the various organs of the body.

While the gill of an oyster is a breathing organ,
like the gill of a fish or crab or conch, this is only one
of its many uses. The fish and the crab and the conch
have other organs for supplying the gills with a stream
of fresh water, but the gills of the oyster, besides puri-
fying the blood, keep up a circulation of water for

THE OYSTER.

33

themselves. They are also organs for gathering up
food from the water, and after it has been gathered
they become organs for carrying it to the mouth.
They are also reproductive organs, adapted for secur-
ing the fertilization of the eggs, and thus providing for
the propagation of the species. In the European oyster
and in the mussel they are also brood-chambers, in
which the young are held and protected and nourished
during their early stages of growth, until they are large
enough to care for themselves.

An organ which is at once a gill, a pump for sup-
plying the gills with water, a food-collector, an organ
for carrying the food into the mouth, a reproductive
organ, and a nursing-chamber, must, of course, be
complicated. The oyster's gill does all these things,
and does them all well. It is not a jack-of -all-trades,
but a machine which is beautifully adapted for carrying
them all on at the same time, in such a way that each
use helps the other uses, instead of hindering them.
This is the more remarkable since an ordinary mol-
lusc, such as the conch, has distinct organs for all
these purposes, although the oyster's gill does every-
thing just as well and just as readily as the various
organs of the conch.

There are four gills in the oyster, two on each side
of the body. They are long, flat, thin, leaf-like organs,
Plates I and II, g, placed side by side, and nearly
filling the mantle chamber, in which they hang. Each
gill is made up of two leaves, so that there are in all
eight gill-leaves.

34 THE OYSTER.

PLATE II.

An oyster in the right valve of the shell, dissected so
as to show the internal organs. The anterior end of
the body is at the top of the figure, and the dorsal sur-
face on the right hand.

b the mantle, c the muscle, d the heart, g the gill,
h the lips, i the intestine, j the liver, m the mouth, s the
stomach.

THE OYSTER

PL ATE I [

A.Hoen&Cn.Lith

THE OYSTER. 35

If you gum together the ends of a folded sheet of
foolscap paper, so as to make a flat pocket, this, when
held vertically, with the opening above, will form a
pretty good model of a single gill.

The closed portions of the four gills hang down
into the mantle-chamber, side by side, but their upper
edges are fastened to each other, and to the inside of
the mantle, in such a way that they form a folded par-
tition, something like a double W, which divides the
mantle-chamber into two parts: a lower chamber, in
which the gills hang, known as the gill-chamber, and
an upper chamber, into which the pockets open. This
chamber is known as the cloaca, the Latin word for a
sewer, or channel for waste water, and I hope to show
you the fitness of the name soon.

The partition between the two chambers is formed
somewhat in this way. The upper edge of the outer
leaf of the outer gill is united, along its whole length,
to the inner surface of the mantle. The upper edge of
the inner leaf of the outer gill is united to the same
edge of the outer leaf of the inner gill. The upper
edges of the inner leaves of the two inner gills are
united to each other on the middle line of the body.

If you were to make four pockets out of four sheets
of paper, and were then to gum two of them together
.along their free edges, you would make a double
pocket, which might be opened out so that a section
through it would be like a W. This would serve as
a model of the two gills on one side of the body, and
two more sheets, treated in the same way would make

36 THE OYSTER.

a model of the other two gills. Now gum two W's
together, side by side, and the double W will be a
model of the four gills. Now open a very large book-
cover, just far enough to gum the upper outer edge of
one W to the inside of one cover, and the opposite edge
of the other W to the other, and you will have a rough
model of the coarse anatomy of the oyster's gills, like
the diagram in Fig. I of Plate III. The space between
the covers is the mantle-chamber, divided by the gills
into a lower portion or gill-chamber, in which the
gills hang, and an upper cloacal chamber, into which
the pockets open.

So far I have spoken of the gills as if the pockets
reached, without interruption, from end to end, but
this is not the case. Each pocket is divided up, by a
series of vertical partitions, into a number of small
cavities — the water tubes, each of which ends blindly
below, and opens above into the cloaca.

To represent them in our model we must gum the
two leaves of each pocket together from top to bot-
tom along the series of vertical lines about an inch
apart. Our model is very much larger than the actual
gill, of course.

The spaces between the partitions which are thus
formed will represent the water tubes, w, in Figs. I
and 3 of Plate III, closed below and opening above
into the cloaca, and our model will now illustrate the
anatomy of the gill, so far as it can be made out without
a microscope.

I must now speak of the minute anatomy. If a

THE OYSTER. 37

small piece of one of the gills be cut out, and spread
flat upon a glass slide so that its surface may be
examined under a microscope, it will be found to be
thickly covered with parallel ridges running from top
to bottom, like the lines on the sheet of paper, each
ridge being separated from the next one by a deep
furrow. Fig. 3 of Plate III is a greatly magnified
drawing of a cross-section of a small part of a gill,
including one water tube, w, and the partitions a, a,
between it and the adjacent tubes ; r, r, r are the
ridges, and p, p water pores. In the bottoms of the
furrows there are many minute openings — the water
pores, which pass through the wall of the gill into
the water tubes, and thus form the channels of com-
munication between the two divisions of the mantle-
chamber.

The ridges themselves are hollow, or rather, each
one contains a minute blood-vessel, which runs
throughout its entire length, so that each wall of each
gill is practically a grating of parallel, vertical blood-
vessels, in which the blood is purified by contact with
the water which fills the gills and the chamber in
which they hang. The purified blood is then forced
into larger vessels, which carry it to the heart, by
which it is pumped to all parts of the body, to be
again returned to the gills after it has become impure.

The gills are therefore easily intelligible, so far as
they are simply organs of respiration; they hang in
the water which fills the mantle-chamber, and their

38 THE OYSTER.

walls are filled with blood-vessels in which the blood
comes into close contact with the water.

The way in which the current of fresh water is kept
up to bathe the gills continually with a new supply is-
more complicated.

When one of the ridges on the surface of the gill is
examined with a high power of the microscope, it is
found to be fringed on each side by a row of fine
hairs, Plate III, Fig. 2, c, c, each one less than ^ inch
long, and so fine that a good microscope must be
used to see them. They project from the sides of the
ridges, over the furrows between them, and therefore
overhang the water pores in the bottoms of the furrows.

In a fragment cut from a fresh gill, each one of these
hairs is constantly swaying back and forth, with a
motion like that of an oar in rowing, quick and strong
one way, and slower the other way. They all move in
time, but they do not keep stroke, for each one comes
to rest an instant before the one on one side of it, and
an instant after the one on the other side. So that
waves of motion are continually running from one end
of each ridge to the other, like the waves which you
have seen running over a field of ripe grain, as each
stalk bends before the wind and then recovers.

What would happen if a boat's crew were to row
with all their strength, with the boat tied to a wharf?
As they could not pull the boat through the water,
they would push the water past the boat. This is
exactly what the hairs do. They set up a current in
the water. Each one is so small that its individual

THE OYSTER. 39

effect is inconceivably minute, but the innumerable
multitude causes a vigorous circulation, and each one
is set in such a position that it drives the water before
it from the gill-chamber into one of the water pores,
and so into one of the water tubes inside the gill.
As these are filled they overflow into the cloaca and
fill that. If the mantle were closed, all the water
would soon be pumped out of the gill-chamber into
the cloaca, but you remember that an oyster at rest
always has the mantle open. As fast as the gill-cham-
ber is emptied by the hairs, fresh water streams in from
outside, to be, in its turn, driven through the water
pores into the water tubes, and through them into the
cloaca, whence it is driven out between the open shells
and away from the oyster.

So much for the gills as organs for maintaining a
current of water. We come now to the way in which
they procure food.

The food of the oyster consists of microscopic organ-
isms, minute animals and plants, which swim in the
water. They are pretty abundant in all water, but
those who do not work with the microscope have very
erroneous ideas on the subject. When a professional
exhibitor shows you, under the microscope, what he
calls a drop of pure water, it is nothing of the sort.
It is either a collection made by filtering several barrels
of water, or else it is a drop squeezed from a piece of
decayed moss, or from some other substance in which
microscopic organisms have lived and multiplied.

Sea water is like fresh water in this respect, and an

40 THE OYSTER.

oyster must strain many gallons of water to get its
daily bread ; but the gills, with their hundreds of thou-
sands of microscopic water pores, are most efficient
strainers.

The surface of the gills is covered by an adhesive
excretion, for entangling the microscopic organisms
contained in the water, and as this circulates over and
through the gills, they stick fast like flies on fly-paper.
The hairs which drive the water through the gills, push
the slime, with the food which has become entangled
in it, towards the mouth, which is well up towards the
hinge ; for it is hardly necessary to say that what the
oystermen call the mouth is only the opening between
the halves of the mantle.

On each side of the mouth, Plate II, m, there is a
pair of fleshy organs, Plate I and II, h, called the
lips, although they are more like mustaches than lips,
for they hang down on each side of the mouth. One
on the right is joined to one on the left, above the
mouth, while the other two are joined below it, so that
the mouth itself lies in a deep groove or slit between
the lips.

The ends of the gills fit into this groove, and as the
hairs slide the food forward, it slips at last between the
lips and slides into the mouth, which is always open.
As this process is going on whenever the oyster is
breathing, the supply of food is continuous, and while
it consists, for the most part, of invisible organisms,
the oyster's stomach is usually well filled. It is not
necessary to describe the oyster's stomach and intes-

THE OYSTER. 41

tine, and dark-colored liver,, as these will be under-
stood from the figure. The chief purpose of the
anatomical sketch is to show the wonderful way in
which the gills of the oyster fit it for gathering up the
microscopic life of our bay, and for turning it into
valuable human food. Looked at from this point of
view, the minute anatomy of the animal becomes emi-
nently practical, as it enables us to understand its true
relation to man.

In view of the very exceptional fertility of the bay,
and its boundless capacity for producing microscopic
vegetation, the immense importance of an animated
strainer, perfectly adapted for filtering very great quan-
tities of water, for gathering up the microscopic life
which it contains for digesting and assimilating it,
and for converting it into food of the most attractive
and nutritious character, cannot be overestimated ; but
after we have studied the embryology of the oyster,
we shall understand why the natural oysters alone
can never utilize all the resources of our waters. We
shall see why it is that the oyster is so well fitted for
domestication and cultivation, and why the cultivation
of oysters will render the Chesapeake Bay incomparably
more valuable than it has ever been even before our
natural beds began to deteriorate.

THE OYSTER AS A SOURCE OF THE INFECTION OF HUMAN
BEINGS WITH CHOLERA AND TYPHOID FEVER.

The reader of the preceding pages will see that the
oyster is an admirably constructed machine for filtering
5

42 THE OYSTER.

PLATE III.

(Drawn by J. L. KELLOGG.)

FIGURE I. A diagram to show the double-w-like
arrangement of the eight leaves forming the four gills.
The gill-chamber of the mantle is supposed to be on
the right and the cloacal chamber on the left, w is the
opening of a water tube.

FIGURE 2. A very highly magnified view of a cross-
section of two of the gill ridges, to show the blood
channels, and the gill-cilia, c, c.

FIGURE 3. A highly magnified cross-section of part
of a gill, including one water tube, w, and the parti-
tions, a, a, between it and the adjacent tubes, r, r, r,
the ridges, />, p, the water pores.

THE OVSTER

PLATE III

A.Huen&Ca.Lith

THE OYSTER. 43

out the microscopic organisms that float in the water.
Many gallons — probably many barrels — of water are
drawn through the gills of each oyster every day, and
the microscopic beings "that it may contain strained out
and entangled upon the surface of these natural strain-
ers, and pushed along towards and into the oyster's
mouth, in a stream that, while almost as slow as the
movement of the minute hand of a watch, is steady and
almost uninterrupted. Each microscopic organism is a
long time in travelling from the point where it first
touches the gill into the oyster's stomach. All this
time it is alive, and capable of reproducing its kind and
becoming the parent of new generations, when removed
from the gill and placed under suitable conditions.
Most of these organisms are wholesome to man, and all
that enter into the oyster's stomach are quickly killed
and converted into its palatable and nutritious sub-
stance, but, so long as they are travelling along the
gills, all are alive, and some extremely dangerous to
man. The oyster exercises choice in the selection of
its food, rejecting some of the microscopic organisms,
and swallowing others ; but those that are discharged
into the water with the sewage of cities are not, unfor-
tunately, among the ones that are rejected; and before
these have entered the oyster's stomach, they are most
favorably placed for gaining entrance into human
stomachs and multiplying there.

It has been known to naturalists for many years that
epidemics of cholera and typhoid fever have arisen
through the contamination of oysters by sewage ; and,

44

THE OYSTER.

within recent years, so many cases of typhoid fever
have been traced to oysters that this source of danger
to the health and life of human beings is now recog-
nized and, perhaps, exaggerated by the readers of the
newspapers ; although this danger, as well as the dan-
ger to the fair fame of our oysters, is real and serious,
and increasing with the growth of the cities and towns
upon the shores of the Chesapeake Bay and its tribu-
taries.

The danger of the pollution of the open waters of the
Bay is slight, and dead organic matter is here quickly
oxidized and destroyed by the agitation and aeration of
the water by the waves. In my opinion, no one need
fear to eat true salt-water oysters raw, but every
" fresh-water oyster " and every " fattened oyster " is
too dangerous to be eaten raw.

A menace to health concerns us all, and every citizen
should do his part to protect our oysters from the
slightest breath of suspicion. A bad name would be
the most serious by far of all the obstacles to the devel-
opment of a flourishing oyster industry in our waters.

So long as we use oysters for food, and eat them raw,
the whole Bay should be treated as drinking water, for
while no one does drink its water, most of us are fond
of eating raw oysters.

Every citizen of Maryland or Virginia should make
it his business to put a stop to the discharge of sewage
into our waters, and the great cities should take the lead
in this and set a good example.

There is one practice so pernicious and so useless

THE OYSTER. 45

that all should unite in protesting against its continu-
ance. This is the so-called " fattening " of oysters.
When oysters are removed from more saline water to
that which is less salt, they absorb water quickly, and
become plump, or " fat," but the fatness is nothing but
water. The " fattening " is usually carried on in the
mouths of rivers or in habors, which are always near
towns and polluted by sewage.

Every " fattened " oyster is too suspicious to be eaten
raw, and the outbreaks of typhoid fever which have
been traced to oysters most clearly have been traced to
" fattened " oysters. All the fresh water that a " fat-
tened " oyster has absorbed is at once extracted by
cooking, so the " fattening " of oysters that are to be
cooked is not only an unnecessary expense, but a fraud
on the consumer, who is sold filthy water from the har-
bors of cities at the price of oysters.

CHAPTER III.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OYSTER.

The body of an oyster is not a simple, unorganized
lump of flesh, but a complicated organism, made up
of many parts, each one so related to the other parts
that we must study the whole animal before we can
understand the admirable adjustment of each organ to
its use.

The oyster is unintelligible until we have studied
the organs which compose it, and the organs them-
selves are unintelligible unless they are studied as
constituent parts of the whole.

The oyster is a unit, a complete individual whole,
made up of units of a lower order, the organs, in
somewhat the same way that a regiment of soldiers is
a unit, made up of units of a lower order, the com-
panies.

A description of the organs of the oyster does not,
however, by any means complete the analysis of its
body, for when any part is studied under a micro-
scope, after it has been properly prepared, it is found
to be made up of units of a still lower order, just as
each company is made up of individual soldiers, or
as the ten dimes which make a dollar are themselves
made up of cents.

THE OYSTER. 47

Every part consists of cells, which are united into
organs, in nearly the same way that these are united
to form the oyster; and in order that what I shall say
about its development from the egg may be intelligible,
this fact must be held clearly in mind.

Each cell is a minute portion of living matter, with
an individuality of its own, like the individualities of
the soldiers which form the regiment.

The properties of each organ are due, in part, to the
way in which the cells are arranged, and in part to the
properties of the cells themselves, for the cells which
enter into one organ may be quite different from those
which enter into another.

Each of the cells which form the glandular surface
of the mantle is itself a gland, and is quite different
from a muscle cell, so that, in a certain sense, the
activity of the mantle in forming the shell is the sum
of the activities of its cells, just as the evolutions of a
regiment are the sum of the actions of the soldiers,
but a regiment can do many things which would be
beyond the power of an unorganized mob, and the
formation of the shell is due to the activity of the
mantle as a whole.

In an adult oyster we have gland cells in the mantle,
muscle cells in the muscles, nerve cells in the nervous
system, ciliated cells in the gills, and so on ; but if we
study the animal at earlier and earlier stages, we find
that these distinctions disappear, until, in ultimate
analysis, all the cells are alike so far as the microscope
tells us.

48 THE OYSTER.

They are simply minute, definitely limited masses of
living matter, with the power to grow when furnished
with food ; and after their size has thus increased, they
have the power to multiply by splitting up into smaller
and more numerous cells, which in their turn grow
and multiply in the same way.

They at first exhibit no traces whatever of the uses
to which they are to be put, but as they grow older
they gradually become specialized in various direc-
tions and are built up into the tissues and organs of
the body, losing at the same time their sharp dis-
tinctness and fusing with each other.

Just as certain cells become gland cells, others
muscle cells, and so on, certain cells of the adult
body become set apart as reproductive cells ; eggs in
the female and male cells in the male.

The egg cells grow until they become very much
larger .than any of the ordinary cells of the body ; at
the same time their outlines become sharply defined,
and they become dark-colored and granular. The
granular appearance is due to the fact that as they
approach maturity they become filled with food, which
is stored away in them as a provision for the time
when they are to be cast off from the body of the
oyster, to lead an independent existence.

The male cells are very much smaller than the eggs,
they contain little food, and when they are mature
each of them is furnished with a long cilium or vibra-
ting hair, by means of which the cell is able to swim

THE OYSTER.

49

in the water, while the egg is motionless and sinks to
the bottom as soon as it is set free.

When the reproductive elements are fully ripe they
are discharged from the body into the cloacal chamber
of the mantle. The male cells are swept out into the
ocean by the current produced by the hairs on the gills.
As they contain no food, their power to live inde-
pendently is very limited, and all soon die except those
that come into contact with eggs.

In the American oyster the eggs are swept out into
the water in the same way. The eggs of the European
oyster are much larger and heavier, and they fall into
the water tubes of the gills and lodge there. Here
they are exposed to the current of water which circu-
lates through the gills, and this current brings with it
some of the male cells which swim in the water around
the oyster-bed. As soon as one of them comes into
contact with an egg it fuses with it and loses its
individuality and is lost in the substance of the egg,
which is thus fertilized and at once begins its develop-
ment into a new oyster.

There is no such provision for securing the fertili-
zation of the eggs of the American oyster. They are
thrown out into the water, like the male cells, to be
fertilized by accident, and while many of them meet
with male cells, innumerable multitudes sink to the
bottom and are lost. It is fortunate for other animals
that this is the case, for our oyster is so prolific that
if all the eggs were to be fertilized and were to live
and to grow to maturity, they would fill up the entire

50 THE OYSTER.

bay in a single season. Far from being an exaggera-
tion, this statement is much short of the truth. An
average Maryland oyster of good size lays about six-
teen million eggs, and if half of these were to develop
into female oysters, we should have, from a single
female, eight million descendants in the first genera-
tion, and in the second eight million times eight million
or 64,000,000,000,000.

In the third generation we should have eight million
times this or 512,000,000,000,000,000,000.

In the fourth, 4,096,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

In the fifth, 33,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,-
000,000 female oysters, and as many males, or, in all,
66,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

If each oyster fill eight cubic inches of space, it would
take 8,CKX),c>oo,ooo,(xx),ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo,ooo to
make a mass as large as the earth, and the fifth genera-
tion of descendants from a single female oyster would
make more than eight worlds, even if each female
laid only one brood of eggs. As the oyster lives for
many years, and lays eggs each year, the possible rate
of increase is very much greater than that shown by
the figures.

The waste of oyster eggs through lack of fertiliza-
tion is simply inconceivable, but it is possible to fer-
tilize them artificially by mixing the eggs and the
male cells in a small quantity of water, where they are
certain to come into contact with each other. In this
way about 98 per cent of the eggs may be saved and
made to produce young oysters, and I have had at

THE OYSTER. 51

one time in a small tumbler of water a number of
active and healthy oysters, greater, many times, than
the whole human population of Maryland.

If several oysters are opened during the breeding
season, which varies according to locality and climate,
as will hereafter be shown, a few will be found with
the reproductive organ greatly distended and of a
uniform opaque-white color. These are oysters which
are spawning or ready to spawn, that is, to discharge
their eggs. Sometimes the ovaries are so gorged
that the ripe eggs ooze from the openings of the
oviducts before the mass is quite at the point of
being discharged. If the point of a knife be pushed
into the swollen ovary, a milk white fluid will flow
out of the cut. Mixing a little of this with sea water,
and placing it on a slide underneath a cover, a lens of
loo diameters will show, if the specimen is a female,
that the white fluid is almost entirely made up of
irregularly, pear-shaped, ovarian eggs, each of which
contains a large, circular, transparent, germinative
vesicle, surrounded by a layer of a granular, slightly
opaque yolk. Perfectly ripe eggs will be seen to be
clean, sharply defined, and separate from each other.
If the specimen be male, a glance through the micro-
scope shows something quite different from the fluid
of a female. There are no large bodies like the eggs,
but the fluid is filled with innumerable numbers of
minute granules, which are so small that they are
barely visible when magnified 100 diameters. They
are not uniformly distributed, but are much more

52 THE OYSTER.

numerous at some points than at others, and for this
reason the fluid has a cloudy or curdled appearance.
By selecting a place where the granules are few and
pretty well scattered, very careful watching will show
that each of them has a lively, dancing motion; and
examination with a power of 500 diameters will show
that each of them is tadpole-shaped, and consists of a
small oval, sharply defined " head," and a long, deli-
cate " tail," by the lashing of which the dancing is pro-
duced. These are the male cells, whose union with the
eggs or ova of the female is necessary to the fertiliza-
tion of the latter, and the consequent hatching of living
oysters.

The number of male cells which a single male will
yield is great beyond all power of expression, but the
number of eggs which an average female will furnish
may be estimated with sufficient exactness. An un-
usually large American oyster will yield nearly a
cubic inch of eggs, and if these were all in absolute
contact with each other, and there were no portions of
the ovaries or other organs mixed with them, the
cubic inch would contain 5OO3, or 125,000,000. Di-
viding this by two, to allow for foreign matter, inter-
spaces and errors of measurement, we have about
60,000,000 as the possible number of eggs from a single
very large oyster.

In another place I have shown that, by mixing eggs
extracted from a female with male cells, it is an easy
matter to secure their union in a watch crystal or in a
glass beaker.

THE OYSTER.

53

The body of the oyster, like that of all animals,
except the very simplest, is made up of organs, such
as the heart, digestive organs, gills and reproductive
organs, and these organs are at some period in the
life of the oyster made up of microscopic cells. Each
of these consists of a layer of protoplasm around a
central nucleus, which, in the egg, is a large, cir-
cular, transparent body, known as the germinative
vesicle. Each cell of the body is able to absorb food,
to grow, and to multiply by division, and thus to con-
tribute to the growth of the organ of which it forms a
part. The ovarian eggs are simply the cells of an
organ of the body, the ovary, and, so far as the micro-
scope shows, they differ from the ordinary cells only
in being much larger and more distinct from each
other ; and they have the power, when detached from
the body, of growing and dividing up into cells, which
shall shape themselves into a new organism like that
from whose body the egg came. Most of the steps
in this wonderful process may be watched under the
microscope, and, owing to the ease with which the
eggs of the oyster may be obtained, this is a very good
egg to study.

About fifteen minutes after the eggs are fertilized,
Plate IV, Fig. i, they will be found to be covered with
male cells. In about an hour the egg will be found to
have changed its shape and appearance. It is now nearly
spherical, and the germinative vesicle is no longer
visible. The male cells may or may not still be visible
upon the outer surface. In a short time a little trans-

54 THE OYSTER.

parent point makes its appearance on the surface of the
egg, increases in size, and soon forms a little, project-
ing, transparent knob — the pole cell.

Soon after, a second pole cell is formed, and the
female pronucleus unites with the male pronucleus to
form the nucleus of the developing egg, which egg now
becomes pear-shaped, with the pole cells at the broad
end of the pear, and this end soon divides into two
parts, so that the egg is now made of one large mass
and two slightly smaller ones, with the pole cells be-
tween them. Plate IV, Fig. 2.

The later history of the egg shows that at this early
stage it is not perfectly homogeneous, but that the
protoplasm which is to give rise to certain organs of
the body has separated from that which is to give
rise to others.

If the egg were split vertically we should have what
is to become one half of the body in one part and the
other half in the other. The single spherule at the
small end of the pear is to give rise to the cells of
the digestive tract of the adult, and to those organs
which are to be derived from it, while the two spheres
at the large end are to form the cells of the outer wall
of the body and the organs which are derived from it,
such as the gills, the lips and the mantle, and they are
also to give rise to the shell. The upper portion of the
egg soon divides up into smaller and smaller spherules,
Plate IV, Figs. 3, 4, 5, 6, until we have a layer of small
cells wrapped around the greater part of the surface of
a single large spherule. This spherule now divides

THE OYSTER. 55

up into a layer of cells, and in a sectional view the
embryo is seen to be made up of two layers of cells ;
an upper layer of small transparent cells, which are to
form the outer wall of the body, and which have been
formed by the division of the spherules which occupy
the upper end of the egg, and a lower layer of much
larger cells which are to become the walls of the stom-
ach, and which have been formed by the division of the
large spherule.

This layer is seen in the section to be pushed in a
little toward the upper layer, so that the lower surface
of the disk-shaped embryo is not flat, but very slightly
concave. This concavity is destined to grow deeper
until its edges almost meet, and it is the rudimentary
digestive cavity. Fig. 7. A very short time after this
stage has been reached, and usually within from two to
four hours after the eggs were fertilized, the embryo
undergoes a great change of shape. Plate IV, Fig. 8.

A circular tuft of long hairs, or cilia, now makes
its appearance at what is thus marked as the anterior
end of the body, and as soon as these hairs are formed
they begin to swing backward and forward in such a
way as to constitute a swimming organ, which rows the
little animal up from the bottom to the surface of
the water, where it swims around very actively by the
aid of its cilia. This stage of development, which is
of short duration, is of great importance in rearing the
young oysters, for it is the time when they can best be
siphoned off into a separate vessel and freed from the
danger of being killed by the decay of any eggs which

56 THE OYSTER.

may fail to develop. On one surface of the body at
this stage there is a well-marked groove, and when a
specimen is found in a proper position for examination,
the opening into the digestive tract is found at the
bottom of this groove. The embryo now consists of a
central cavity, the digestive cavity, which opens ex-
ternally by a small orifice, the primitive mouth, and
which is surrounded at all points, except at the mouth,
by a wall which is distinct from the outer wall of the
body. Around the primitive mouth these two layers
are continuous with each other.

This stage of development, in which the embryo
consists of two layers, an inner layer surrounding a
cavity which opens externally by a mouth-like open-
ing, and an outer layer which is continuous with the
inner around the margins of the opening, is of very
frequent occurrence, and it has been found, with modifi-
cations, in the most widely separated groups of animals,
such as the starfish, the oyster, and the frog, and some
representatives of all the larger groups of animals, ex-
cept the Protozoa, appear to pass during their develop-
ment through a form which may be regarded as a more
or less considerable modification of that presented by
our oyster-embryo. This stage of development is
known as the gastrula stage.

Certain full-grown animals, such as the fresh-water
hydra and some sponges, are little more than modi-
fied gastrulas. The body is a simple vase, with an
opening at one end communicating with a digestive
cavity, the wall of which is formed by a layer of cells,

THE OYSTER.

57

which is continuous around the opening with a second
layer, which forms the outer wall of the body. This
fact, together with the fact that animals of the most
widely separated groups pass through a gastrula stage
of development, has led certain naturalists to a gener-
alization, which is known as the " gastrula theory."
This theory or hypothesis is that all animals, except the
Protozoa, are more or less direct descendants of one
common but very remote ancestral form, whose body
consisted of a simple two-walled vase, with a central
digestive cavity opening externally at one end of the
body.

Soon a small, irregular plate makes its appearance
on each side of the body. These little plates are the
two valves of the shell, and in the oyster they are sepa-
rated from each other from the first, and make their
appearance independently.

Soon after the shells make their appearance the em-
bryos cease to crowd to the surface of the water, and
sink to various depths, although they continue to swim
actively in all directions, and may still be found, occa-
sionally, close to the surface. The region of the body
which carries the cilia now becomes sharply defined, as
a circular, projecting pad, the velum, Figs. 8, 9, 10, n ;
and this is present and is the organ of locomotion, at
a much later stage of development.

The two shells grow rapidly and soon become quite

regular in outline, but for some time they are much

smaller than the body, which projects from between

their edges, around their whole circumference, except

6

58 THE OYSTER.

PLATE IV.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE OYSTER.

All the figures are highly magnified, and all except
Figure 12 are reproduced from the author's drawings
from nature. Figure 12 is copied from a figure by
R. T. Jackson in the American Naturalist, December,
1890.

FIGURE i. A newly laid egg with the male cells fas-
ened to its surface.

FIGURE 2. An embryo in the two-celled stage.

FIGURE 3. An embryo at the beginning of the four-
celled stage.

FIGURE 4. An embryo at the end of the four-celled
stage.

FIGURE 5. An embryo in the eight-celled stage.

FIGURE 6. An embryo at the beginning of the six-
teen-celled stage.

FIGURE 7. An optical section of an embryo at the
beginning of the swimming stage. sgt shell gland ; st,
stomach.

FIGURE 8. A swimming embryo a little older than
the one shown in Figure 7.

FIGURE 9. The stage in which the first traces of the
shell make their appearance, s, shell ; st, stomach.

FIGURE 10. The swimming oyster, about three days
old. s, the edge of the shell ; st, stomach ; i, intestine.

FIGURE 1 1 . A swimming oyster about six days old.

FIGURE 12. An oyster which has become attached.

PLATE IV

THE OYSTER, 59

along a short area, the area of the hinge, upon the
dorsal surface, where the two valves are in contact.

The two shells continue to grow at their edges, and
soon become large enough to cover up and project a
little beyond the surface of the body, and at the same
time muscular fibres, Fig. n, make their appearance.
They are so arranged that they can draw the edge of
the body and the velum in between the edges of the
shell. In this way that surface of the body which
lines the shell becomes converted into the two lobes of
the mantle, and between them a mantle cavity is
formed, into which the velum can be drawn when the
animal is at rest. While these changes have been
going on over the outer surface of the body, other im-
portant internal modifications have taken place.

Soon the outer wall of the body becomes pushed
inward, to form the mouth. The digestive cavity now
becomes greatly enlarged, and cilia make their appear-
ance upon its walls ; the mouth becomes connected
with the chamber which is thus formed, and which
becomes the stomach, and minute particles of food are
drawn in by the cilia, and can now be seen inside the
stomach, where the vibration of the cilia keeps them in
constant motion. Up to this time the animal has
developed without growing, and is scarcely larger than
the unfertilized egg, but it now begins to increase in
size.

Soon after the mouth has become connected with
the stomach this becomes united to the body wall at
another point a little behind the mouth, and a second

60 THE OYSTER.

opening, the anus, is formed. The tract which con-
nects the anus with the stomach lengthens and forms
the intestine, and, soon after, the sides of the stomach
become folded off to form the two halves of the liver,
and various muscular fibres now make their appear-
ance within the body.

Such is the history of the oyster-embryo. Its prac-
tical utility is in the fact that while the American oyster
lays a vast number of eggs, they are exposed to dangers
so constant and innumerable, that under ordinary con-
ditions few ever come to life, or at any rate succeed in
living long enough to anchor themselves and take on
the protection of shells. This is only another example
of a fact well known to naturalists. The number of
eggs laid, or even of individuals born, has very little
to do with the abundance of a species, which is de-
termined, mainly, by the external conditions to which
it is exposed.

LIFE OF THE YOUNG OYSTER. — The young American
oyster leads a peculiarly precarious life, since it is
first thrown out an unfertilized egg, so that the chance
that it will immediately meet with a male cell must be
very slight ; yet if it does not it will perish, for the sea-
water soon destroys unimpregnated eggs. Having
by good chance become fertilized by meeting a male
cell, the next period of great danger is the short time
during which the embryos swarm at the surface of the
water. They are so perfectly defenseless, and so
crowded together close to the surface, that a small fish,
swimming along with open mouth, might easily swal-

THE OYSTER. 61

low, in a few mouth fuls, a number equal to a year's
catch. They are also exposed to the weather, and a
sudden cold wind or fall in temperature, such as
occurred several times during my experiments, killed
every embryo. The number which are destroyed by
cold rains and winds must be very great indeed. As
soon as they are safely past this stage, and scatter and
swim at various depths, their risks from accidents and
enemies are greatly diminished. Up to this point,
which is reached in from twenty-four hours to six-
days, there is no difficulty in rearing them in an aqua-
rium, provided uniform warm temperature be pre-
served.

Although I failed to keep the young oysters alive
until they were large enough to handle and plant, my
experiments showed the possibility of rearing them
in unlimited numbers, so soon as some practical method
of preserving them alive during their infancy should
be discovered.

The next great step in this direction is due to Lieut.
Winslow. While I was carrying on my experiments
at Crisfield, in 1879, this officer was engaged in ex-
amining the oyster-beds of Tangier Sound, and he
made frequent visits to the laboratory and learned my
methods. The next year, while stationed at Cadiz,
Spain, on naval duty, he repeated the experiments
with Portuguese oysters, and showed that these, like
the American oysters, have the sexes separate, and
that the eggs are fertilized in the water; that the
young are independent of parental protection, and that

62 THE OYSTER.

they can be artificially reared like the oysters of our
waters. His results were given in a paper which was
read before the Maryland Academy of Sciences, in
November, 1881, and this paper was afterwards printed
in the American Naturalist.

The next great step was the discovery of a simple
and practical method of rearing the young oysters
which are hatched artificially, and this step, which
completes the solution of the problem, and puts it
within our power to remove forever all danger of the
extermination of the oyster, is the contribution of
a French naturalist, M. Bouchon-Brandeley. This
author, like Winslow, experimented with the Portu-
guese oysters, and while he does not seem to have
been acquainted with Winslow's paper, he arrived at
the same conclusion, and showed that the sexes are
separate, that the eggs are fertilized in the water and
that the young may be hatched artificially; but he
also went one step further, and succeeded in rearing
in this way a very great number of seed-oysters fit for
planting.

His paper was translated and printed April 19, 1883,
in the Bulletin of the U. S. Fish Commission. The
following extracts from this translation show the char-
acter of the methods which are employed, and the re-
sults which were obtained:

" When after two years we had learned for a cer-
tainty that the sexes of Ostrea angulata are confined
to separate individuals, we immediately conceived that
it was possible to artificially fertilize the eggs of this

THE OYSTER. 63

mollusc. We were likewise encouraged by the experi-
ments which Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity of Baltimore, had made upon Ostrea virginica,
likewise unisexual, and which had enabled him to fol-
low the development of the embryos to the formation
of the shell."

" M. Tripota, one of the veteran ostraculturists, and
at the same time one of the most competent, very will-
ingly, at the request of the commissioner, M. Jouan,
placed at our disposal, with a grace and disinterested-
ness for which we are under great obligations, two
beautiful unsubmersible claires, which received fresh
water for several days during the spring tide, and
which were soon arranged for our use by means of
some slight internal alterations. Separated from each
other by a straight, massive wall of earth, these two
ponds, with an area of about 100 meters each, and an
average depth of 80 centimeters to I meter (27 inches
to 3 feet), were placed in communication by means of
a pipe, which was closed at either end by a sponge, to
keep out any sediment in suspension in the water. In
this manner all doubt as to the origin of the spat
which was collected was guarded against."

" For the outlet, an apparatus consisting of a wall of
find sand confined by boards permitted the water to
percolate through it, but prevented the embryos from
escaping with it. The lowermost claire only was
utilized in our experiments. The uppermost claire, in
which we stored the water whenever it was possible,
served as a reservoir from which to decant, the supply

64 THE OYSTER.

pipe allowing nothing to pass into the experimental
claire except clear water."

" This arrangement completed, the products of arti-
ficial fecundation, impregnated in various ways, were
poured into the experimental reservoir. This took
place in the second week in June."

" On the 24th July the tiles were examined. This
time all had spat attached. In fact, each of the tiles
immersed had young oysters attached, to the number of
twenty or thirty, measuring about a centimeter (two-
fifths of an inch) in diameter. This spat was evidently
derived from the spawn put out during the end of
June or the commencement of July; but their small
size had prevented us from seeing them when the in-
spection was made at that time. On the 24th July we
had specimens about a month old. This fact was all
the more remarkable, in that, up to that same time, the
collectors placed in the Gironde, in the very center of
the spawning beds, did not show a sign of spat."

" The problem which we had put before ourselves
had accordingly received, from a scientific and practi-
cal point of view, a solution in conformity with our
hopes. It was possible to obtain spat by means of
artificial fecundation, and to capture it in confined
waters. And we no longer had the slightest reason
to doubt the identity of that which had caught on our
tiles, nor to suppose that it came from the waters
without, since there was as yet none apparent in the
Gironde, and the tiles in the upper claire, which served

THE OYSTER. 65

to feed the experimental claire, were completely ex-
empt."

Such, briefly sketched, is the early history of the
oyster, and the process of rearing oysters artificially ;
but the development of the oyster is of vastly greater
interest than a mere description would indicate. It
contains enough material for philosophical meditation
and for scientific research to occupy many generations
of students. The practical importance of a knowledge
of its embryology does not end with the facts, for we
shall find among the deductions which naturalists have
drawn from it much that will help us to appreciate and
to utilize the oyster as food.

When the egg is first laid it is a little globule of
living matter, with no visible indication of the struc-
ture of an oyster, although it is a potential oyster, and
is destined to build up, slowly, but surely, from the
vegetable food in the water, every part of a complicated
adult like that which produced it. It is not, however,
an oyster in miniature. Our utmost means of observ-
ation do not reveal in it anything whatever, at all like
the structure of the adult. Such structure as the
microscope does show is the structure of a cell, like
one of those which make up the oyster's body, and
the process of development is at first simply a process
of cell-multiplication, not the unfolding and enlarge-
ment of a rudimentary oyster. If we compare an
adult oyster to a brick house, then the egg corresponds
to a brick, not to a little house, and development begins
by cell-division or the multiplication of bricks rather

66 THE OYSTER.

than by the growth of a little house. So far as the
microscope tells us, there is nothing like an oyster in
the egg, yet it must be there in some form, for an
oyster's egg never becomes anything except an oyster.
If we knew only the higher animals we might suppose
that the development of an egg is guided in some way
by the influence of the parent ; but there can be no
such directing influence in the case of the oyster egg,
for this is thrown on the world to take care of itself
before its development begins. The force which
causes it to become an oyster cannot come from par-
ental influence, nor can it be due to anything in the
external world, for hosts of other animals live in the
water with the oyster, and side by side with the oyster
eggs float those of starfishes, annelids and countless
other animals, all exposed to exactly the same external
conditions, and yet each develops after its own kind,
and builds up cell by cell an animal like its parent.

There is no escape from the belief that the directing
force is in the egg itself, and when the microscope
was first used to study the early stages of animals,
naturalists thought they could discover in the egg the
little image in miniature of the future animal, and they
taught that this exists in a perfect but dormant and
unexpanded condition in the egg, and that the process
of development is nothing more than the growth and
expansion of this germ.

More careful study with better instruments and im-
proved methods has failed to verify this supposed dis-
covery, and so far as our present means of research

THE OYSTER. 67

go, they reveal nothing whatever in the egg which
resembles the adult in any particular, nor do they
show anything in the oyster egg which should cause
it to become an oyster rather than some other animal.
The testimony of all observers, based upon the study
of all kinds of animals, is that the egg is not compara-
ble to the adult in miniature, but to one of the con-
stituent cells of its body; that the development of an
egg is not the unfolding of a germ, but a process of
cell-multiplication. The egg divides into a number of
cells like itself, and these divide and subdivide until
they are very numerous. At first they are alike, but
they soon become specialized in different directions,
and thus gradually build up the tissues and organs of
the body. These gradually acquire their final form,
but they are at first simple cell-aggregates, out of
which the complex whole is finally built up by the
combination and organization of the simple units, some-
what as a regiment of soldiers is organized from a
mob of men.

The directing influence must be in the egg, although
it has so far eluded all efforts to discover it. The adult
oyster, with its complicated organs, so beautifully and
wonderfully fitted to its needs, and so intricately re-
lated to each other as parts of a complex whole, is a
most interesting subject for study. No one can study
the structure of any animal without admiring the fit-
ness of all its parts for their work. As we trace out
the use of one part after another, and the oyster be-
comes intelligible to us, its completeness impresses us

68 THE OYSTER.

more and more; but if we are thus impressed by the
study of a complicated mechanism, adapted for bring-
ing about complicated results, what must be our re-
flections when we find in the egg the capacity for pro-
ducing the same results without any visible mechanism
whatever! Everything which seems so admirable in
the adult, when it is the result of organization, exists
potentially in the egg, where there is no discoverable
organization; and if the result of the process of de-
velopment, the complete oyster, is wonderful and in-
teresting, how much more wonderful is the process
itself. To those who can picture in imagination its
hidden structure, an egg is one of the most marvel-
lous bodies in the universe. Elsewhere we have com-
plex results from complex means, but here we have
the most complex of all things, a living body, arising
without any visible machinery.

Even after the cells which result from the multipli-
cation of the egg cell become pretty numerous and
begin to shape themselves into a complicated body,
this at first bears no close resemblance to an oyster,
and while the ultimate outcome is an oyster like the
parent, I should give my readers a very incomplete
and erroneous picture of the history of its develop-
ment if I did not lay stress upon the very remarkable
fact that this result is not reached directly.

The mature oyster is a sedentary animal with no
power of locomotion. It lies on its side, soldered to
the bottom by the outside of the deep spoon-shaped
left shell, for which the flat right shell forms a mova-

THE OYSTER. 69

ble lid. Its gills are very complicated organs, adapted
for drawing into the fixed shell a steady current of
water, and they pour into the open mouth of the animal
a constant stream of food, so that eating goes on as un-
interruptedly as breathing, and is just as much beyond
the control of the animal. The adult oyster makes
no efforts to obtain its food, it has no way to escape
from danger, and after its shell is entered it is per-
fectly helpless and at the mercy of the smallest enemy.
So far as active aggressive life goes it is almost as
inert and inanimate as a plant, and its life is purely
vegetative. This is the adult oyster. The young
oyster is very different. It is an active animal, swim-
ming from place to place. Its gills are not leaf-like,
and they do not divide the mantle-chamber into two
parts. They are nothing but breathing organs, and
are simple finger-like tentacles which hang down into
the water. There is no gill-current as there is in the
adult, and the young oyster must find its own food by
swimming through the water. Its two shells are also
exactly alike, and therefore quite different from those
of the adult.

The egg therefore tends, at first, to build up an
animal which differs greatly from the adult, in struc-
ture as well as in habits, and naturalists believe, as I
have already said, that our modern oysters are the
descendants of an ancient form which was not seden-
tary, and the egg at first exhibits a decided tendency
to build up this ancestor rather than an oyster.

Some of you may ask how we know that the remote

;0 THE OYSTER.

ancestors of the oyster were different from modern
oysters. This is a fair question, and I will try to give
an outline of the reasons for this opinion. Perhaps
an illustration may help us.

When a Baltimorean visits New York or Savannah
or Boston or Chicago, he finds that while the people
of these cities talk the same language, it is with a
difference. They all talk what they call English, but
when an Englishman comes among us he tells us that
it is not English, and it is quite clear to an American
who visits England that the people there do not know
how to talk United States, although the differences
are trivial ones, of accent and idiom, and do not in the
least hinder conversation.

If, however, we cross the narrow strip of water
which separates England from the German Empire, we
find a strange language, which at first seems totally
unfamiliar and unintelligible, but as our ears become
more accustomed to the strange sounds we find many
which are not as unintelligible as they seemed at first.

When a German talks of his vater, his mutter, his
bruder, his schwester, when he asks us to share his
bro d und butter, or offers us a glas wasser, we need no
dictionary to tell us what he means.

We know that the Americans and the English of
to-day are descended from common ancestors, only a
few generations back, from whom they have inherited
their common language, and we know from literature
that this was not exactly the same as modern English
or modern American, and history also tells us that

THE OYSTER. 71

still further back, Anglo-Saxon and modern German
had a common starting-point. Philologists therefore
make use of the resemblances between languages to
trace out their origin, and whenever they find that two
or three languages have a common plan, a funda-
mental similarity of grammatical structure, they be-
lieve that they are divergent modifications from a com-
mon starting-point. In some cases printed language
has preserved an actual history of the process, but in
other cases, where there is no such history, the student
of comparative grammar forms his conclusions by com-
parison; and, even where the primitive language is
lost, he is able to reconstruct it in part, for he knows
that it must have been characterized by all the features
which its derivatives have in common.

Now, animals exhibit resemblances of very much
the same character as those between languages, and
when we find that several representatives of a great
group are constructed upon the same fundamental
plan, we infer, just as the philologist does, that they
are the divergent descendants of a common ancestor,
from whom they have inherited the features which
they have in common.

The philologist is sometimes able to verify his con-
clusion by the proofs which have been preserved in
books and inscriptions, and he regards this as evidence
that, in other cases where no such record is preserved,
his results are equally trustworthy.

Occasionally the student of comparative anatomy,
like the student of comparative grammar, finds a fossil

72 THE OYSTER,

form which unites in itself the characteristics of several
widely separated descendants, and is thus enabled to
test and to verify the conclusions which he has reached
by comparative study.

In this way, through the study of details too numer-
ous and minute to be described here, it can be shown
that the oyster is descended from a mollusc which
was furnished with locomotor organs and sense organs,
and which wandered about in search of food, and had
altogether a much wider and more varied life than that
of the oyster. Its gills were very simple and were
nothing but breathing organs, and the many uses
which they serve were provided for by distinct organs.
Very long ago, as we measure time, but quite late
in the history of the mollusca, as the continental areas
were elevated and became covered with terrestrial vege-
tation, and fringed by bays and sounds of brackish
water, it gradually became modified in such a way as
to fit it for life in these estuaries. Its locomotor organs
and its organs for discovering and capturing food
were gradually lost, as it learned to feed upon the
microscopic life of the mud-flats. The gills then
gradually became modified and fitted for maintaining
the circulation of water, and for filtering out the minute
food particles it contains.

Food is most abundant on the muddy bottom, but
in estuaries this is so deep and soft that a locomotor
animal would sink and smother in it, so the oyster
has gradually become converted into a fixture, and
has learned to fasten itself when young to something

THE OYSTER. 73

firm enough to keep it out of the soft mud, but near
enough to it to be within easy reach of the vast supply
of food which it affords. As a fixed animal does not
need to have the two sides of its body balanced, the
fixed oyster has become one-sided, and has thus been
still better fitted for its peculiar mode of life.

These changes, while they are on the whole ad-
vantageous, since they enable the oysters to avail them-
selves of inexhaustible supplies of food, are not without
disadvantage. The oyster has become so perfectly
adapted for a life on those hard bodies which occur
in the soft mud of estuaries, that it cannot live any-
where else, and the young oysters that do not find a
proper home soon die. In shallow bays and sounds
hard substances are rare and far apart, and many
young oysters must perish from inability to find a
proper resting place. To meet this danger the oyster's
birth rate has been enormously increased, so that
among its innumerable descendants some few may be
able to find proper homes, and may grow up to maturity
in their turn.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARTIFICIAL CULTIVATION OF OYSTERS.

If the Chesapeake Bay is as rich in food for oysters
as I have said, and if the oyster multiplies at such a
rate of increase, how can our supply be in any danger,
or how can there be any need for man to maintain and
develop the oyster-beds? At first sight it does not
seem possible that an animal which is protected from
enemies by a strong stony shell, and which is capable
of giving rise to several million eggs each season, can
be in any danger of extermination ; and it seems as if
the oyster ought to be able to hold its own in the
struggle for existence, and to increase and multiply
in spite of adverse circumstances.

We should rather expect to find the whole bottom
of the bay paved with oysters, and for many years, the
statement that there is any need for measures to pre-
vent the destruction of our natural beds and the total
extermination of our oysters has been met with ridicule,
and it has been flatly contradicted by persons whose
qualifications for expressing an opinion would seem
to be very great.

In 1884 a commissioner, who had been appointed
by the General Assembly of the State of Maryland to

THE OYSTER. 75

examine and report upon the condition of the oyster-
beds of the State, with such recommendations as might
seem advisable for the protection of the oyster in-
dustry, reported that " he has no fears but what the
present oyster supply will be kept up to its present
standard, and within a few years increased. The sup-
ply is now greater, probably, than ever before, and
the prices higher, taking the season through. It is the
increased demand and consequent higher prices that
has created the oyster panic in the public mind to a
great extent. The undersigned is not fully in accord
with the majority report in the belief that the oyster
property of the State is in imminent danger of com-
plete destruction. This is not likely, unless we fail to
give the interest even ordinary care and protection.
Whilst in some localities the beds have been greatly
depleted by overwork, and in others destroyed chiefly
in shallow water ton gin g ground, the beds and bars as
a rule have been greatly enlarged by working them.
. . . The oyster supply of our waters, taken as a whole,
it is likely is as large as ever it was."

In view of this statement, and similar ones from
other men who have enjoyed every opportunity to
learn the truth of the matter and to qualify themslves
to speak upon it with authority, it is not at all strange
that there should be much confusion in the public mind
and that the prejudiced statements of those who have
profited by the destruction of the public property should
outweigh the testimony of disinterested students.
The history of the oyster-beds of Europe, and of

76 THE OYSTER.

those in many of the Northern States, should have
been enough to warn us, years ago, of the need for the
protection and development of our own beds ; but our
people have been too confident of the inexhaustible
vitality of our .own beds to heed the warning. So
long as the consumption of oysters was restricted to
regions in the immediate vicinity of the bay, the
number of oysters which could be taken from each
bed and put upon the market each season was so
small that it could be furnished without taxing the
beds ; but more than twenty-six years ago, November,
1879, I called attention to the fact that the perfection of
our facilities for packing and transporting oysters had
produced such a great demand, that the danger of de-
stroying our best beds was growing greater every day,
and was keeping pace with the growth of our popula-
tion and the improvements in transportation ; and I
called the attention of those who believe that the sup-
ply is sufficient for all demands to the history of other
countries.

No one who is familiar with the history of the oyster-
beds of other parts of the world can be surprised at the
deterioration of our own beds. Everywhere, in France,
in Germany, in England, in Canada, and in all northern
coast states, history tells the same story. In all waters
where oysters are found at all they are usually found
in abundance, and in all of these places the residents
supposed that their natural beds were inexhaustible
until they suddenly found that they were exhausted.
The immense area covered by our own beds has en-

THE OYSTER. 77

abled them to withstand the attacks of the oystermen
for a much longer time, but all who are familiar with
the subject have long been aware that our present sys-
tem can have only one result — extermination.

An estimation of the effect of excessive fishing may
be formed by examining its results upon such beds in
England and France as have records upon the sub-
ject. The most instructive of these are the records of
the production of the beds of Cancale Bay, on the
northwest coast of France, which extend over a period
of sixty-eight years — from 1800 to 1868. The beds
in the bay comprise an area of about 150 acres, and
from 1800 to 1816 produced from 400,000 to 2,400,-
ooo a year. This, however, was the period of the
Napoleonic wars, and the fishing was much disturbed
by the presence of the English cruisers. During this
time the beds became so thickly stocked that the oysters
were said to be a yard thick in some places. After the
close of the war the fishing improved, and the oysters
were removed in larger and increasing numbers until
1843. From 1823 to 1848 it was supposed that the
dredgers were living upon the oysters accumulated
during the period of enforced rest from 1800 to 1816.
In 1817 the number of oysters produced was 5,600,000,
and until 1843 there was a constant increase, the num-
ber taken in the latter year being 70,000,000. In 1848
it was 60,000,000 ; thenceforward there was a constant
decrease. From 1850 to 1856 the decrease was from
50,000,000 to 18,000,000, supposed to be the effect of
overdredging. From 1859 to 1868 the decrease was

78 THE OYSTER.

from 16,000,000 to 1,079,00; the oysters having almost
entirely disappeared from the beds, though, on account
of the suffering condition of the inhabitants of the
shores, it was almost impossible to prevent it. In
1870 there was a complete wreck of the bottom which
could only be remedied by a total prohibition of the
fisheries for several years.

From the beds of the districts of Rochefort, Mar-
ennes, and Island of Oleron, on the west coast of
France, there were taken in 1853-54 10,000,000 oysters,
and in 1854-55 15,000,000. On account of exhaustive
fishing only 400,000 could be obtained in 1863-64.

According to the testimony of Mr. Webber, mayor
of Falmouth, England, about 700 men, working 300
boats, were employed in a profitable oyster fishery in
the neighborhood of Falmouth until 1866, when the
old laws enforcing a "close time" were repealed,
under the impression that, owing to the great produc-
tive powers of the oyster, it would be impossible to
remove a sufficient number to prevent the re-stocking
of the beds. Since 1866 the beds have become so im-
poverished from excessive and continual fishing, that
in 1876 only 40 men and 40 boats could find employ-
ment, and small as the number is, they could not take
more than 60 or 100 oysters a day, while formerly, in
the same time, a boat could take from 10,000 to
12,000.

According to the statement of Mr. Messum, an oys-
ter dealer and the secretary of an oyster company at
Emsworth, England, made before the Commission for

THE OYSTER. 79

the Investigation of Oyster Fisheries, in May, 1876,
there were in the harbor of Emsworth, between the
years of 1840 and 1850, so many oysters that one man
in five hours could take from 24,000 to 32,000. In
consequence of over-fishing, in 1858 scarcely ten ves-
sels could find loads, and in 1868 a dredger in five
hours could not find more than twenty oysters.

The oyster fisheries of Jersey, in the English Chan-
nel, at one time afforded employment to 400 vessels.
In six or seven years the dredging became so exten-
sive and the beds so exhausted that only three or four
vessels could find employment, and the crews of even
that small number had to do additional work on shore
in order to support themselves.

In view of such facts as these, no one who appreci-
ates the magnitude of the oyster industry of the
Chesapeake Bay can doubt that the protection of our
beds is a matter of vital importance, for it is quite
clear that we cannot trust to the natural fecundity of
the oyster.

It is well known to naturalists that the number of
individuals which reach maturity in any species of
animal or plant does not depend on the number which
are born. The common tapeworm lays hundreds of
millions of eggs in a very short time, yet it is com-
paratively rare. The number of children born to each
pair of human beings during their lifetime of sixty or
seventy years can be counted on the fingers, yet man
is the most abundant of the large mammals. The
abundance of a species is mainly determined by the ex-

8o THE OYSTER.

ternal conditions of life, and the birth-rate has very
little to do with it.

In the case of the oyster, the adult is well protected,
by its shell, against the attacks of most of the enemies
which are found in our waters, and as its food is
very abundant and is brought to it in an unfailing sup-
ply by water, it is pretty sure of a long life after it
has reached its adult form; but the life of the young
oyster is very precarious : that of the young American
oyster peculiarly so, since it is exposed to many ene-
mies and accidents at the time when it is most helpless.
The oyster of Northern Europe lays from one to two
million eggs, while our oyster lays about ten times
as many, but the protection which is afforded to the
young European oyster by the shell of the parent more
than balances the greater birth-rate of our oyster.

The most critical time in the life of the American
oyster is undoubtedly the time when the egg is dis-
charged into the water to be fertilized, for the chance
that each egg which floats out into the bay to shift for
itself will immediately meet with a male cell is very
slight, and infinite numbers of eggs are lost from this
cause. The next period of great danger comes as the
little embryos begin to swim and crowd to the surface
of the water. They are so totally defenseless and are
so close together that a little fish swimming along with
open mouth may swallow thousands in a few mouth-
fuls, and I have found that at this time a sudden fall of
temperature is fatal to them, and a cold rain may
destroy millions. As soon as they are safely past this

THE OYSTER. 8l

stage and have scattered and begin to swim at various
depths, their danger from accidents and enemies is
greatly diminished, and their chance of reaching ma-
turity increases rapidly. Experiments which I carried
on many years ago show that there is no difficulty in
rearing them up to this point in captivity, and that in
a very small aquarium millions of them may be safely
carried past the most precarious part of their lives
and freed from their greatest dangers.

Although the mortality at their early stages is so
excessive, the number of young oysters which pass
through them in safety without artificial help is very
great, and if there were no other dangers or uncertain-
ties there would be no need of measures for their pro-
tection. As they swim to and fro in the water they
are carried to great distances by the tides and currents,
and they reach all parts of the region of water within
several miles of the parent bed. In a favorable season,
any plant, or bush, or piece of driftwood which floats
near an oyster-bed becomes covered with small oys-
ters, although the nearest bed may be miles away ; and
the fact that young oysters may be thus collected in
any part of our bay shows that they are distributed
everywhere, and we might expect the adults to have an
equally general distribution. This is by no means the
case, and nothing can be farther from the truth than
the idea that the bottom of the oyster area is uniformly
covered with oysters or ever has been, although it is
quite true that oysters may be reared artificially over
nearly the whole of it. The idea that it is only neces-

82 THE OYSTER.

sary to throw a dredge overboard anywhere in the
oyster area, and to drag it along the bottom for a short
distance in order to bring it up full, is totally errone-
ous. Such a condition of things is quite within the
reach of the cultivator, but it never exists under natural
influences alone. In this country, as well as in Europe,
the oysters are restricted to particular spots called
" banks," or " beds/' or " rocks," which are as well
defined and almost as sharply limited as the tracts
of woodland in a farming country — they are so well
marked that they may be laid down on a chart, or they
may be staked out with buoys; and even in the best
dredging grounds they occupy such an inconsiderable
part of the bottom that no one would have much
chance of finding oysters by promiscuous dredging, in
ignorance of their location. Although the young are
distributed every year by the tides and currents over
all parts of the bottom, the dredge seldom brings up
even a single oyster outside the limits of the beds,
under natural conditions.

\f The restriction of the oysters to certain points does
not depend on the supply of food, for this is every-
where abundant, nor to any great degree upon the
character of the water. It is almost entirely due to the
nature of the bottom.

The full-grown oyster is able to live and flourish in
soft mud so long as it is not buried too deeply for the
open edge of the shell to reach above the mud and
draw a constant supply of water to its gills; but the
oyster embryo would be ingulfed and smothered at

THE OYSTER. 83

once if it were to fall on such a bottom, and in order
to have the least chance of survival it must find some
solid substance upon which to fasten itself, to preserve
it from sinking in the soft mud, or from being buried
under it as it shifts with wind and tide. In the de-
posits which form the soft bottom of sounds and
estuaries solid bodies of any sort rarely occur, and the
so-called " rocks " of the Chesapeake are not ledges or
reefs, but accumulations of oyster shells.

Examination of a Coast Survey chart of any part of
the Chesapeake Bay or of any of its tributaries will
show that there is usually a mid-channel, or line of
deep water, where the bottom is generally soft and
where no oysters are met with, and on each side of
this an area where the bottom is hard, running from
the edge of the channel to the shore. This hard strip
is the oyster area. It varies in width from a few yards
to several miles, and the depth of water varies upon it
from a few feet to five or six fathoms, or even more.
But there is usually a sudden fall at the edge of the
channel, where the oysters stop, and we pass to soft
bottom. The oyster bottom is pretty continuous, ex-
cept opposite the mouth of a tributary, where it is cut
across by a deep, muddy channel. The solid oyster-
rocks are usually situated along the outer edge of this
plateau, although in many cases they are found over
its whole width nearly up to low-tide mark, or beyond.
As we pass south along the bays and sounds of Vir-
ginia and North Carolina, we find that the hard
borders of the channel come nearer and nearer to the

84 THE OYSTER.

PLATE V.

Oysters fastened to the upper surface of a round
boulder, which had formed the ballast of some vessel
and had been thrown overboard in the Bay, where the
lower half had become embedded in the bottom. The
figure, which is about one-fourth the size of the speci-
men, shows the way in which the oysters grow, in dense
crowded clusters, on any solid body which raises them
above the mud.

THE OYSTER. 85

surface, until in the lower part of North Carolina there
is on each side of the channel a wide strip of hard
bottom, which is bare at low tide and covered with
oysters up to high-water mark, although the oysters
are most abundant and largest at the edge of the deep
water, where they form a well-defined reef. In our
own waters there is usually a strip along the shore
where no oysters are found, as the depth of water is
not great enough to protect them in winter. The
whole of the hard belt is not uniformly covered with
oysters, but it is divided up into separate oyster rocks,
between which comparatively few can be found.

The boundaries of a natural rock which has not been
changed by dredging are usually well defined, and
few oysters are to be found beyond its limits. The
oysters are crowded together so closely that they can-
not lie flat, but grow vertically upwards, side by side.
They are long and narrow, are fastened together in
clusters, and are known as " coon oysters."

When such a bed is carefully examined it will be
found that most of the rock is made up of empty shells,
and a little examination will show that the crowding
is so great that the growth of one oyster prevents ad-
jacent ones from opening their shells, and thus crowds
them out and exterminates them. Examination shows,
too, that nearly every one of the living oysters is
fastened to the open or free end of a dead shell which
has thus been crowded to death, and it is not at all
unusual to find a pile of five or six shells thus united,
showing that number two had fastened, when small,

86 THE OYSTER.

to the open end of number one, thus raising itself a
little above the crowd. After number one was killed
number two continued to grow, and number three
fastened itself to its shell, and so on. Usually the
oysters upon such a bed are small, but in some places
shells twelve or fourteen inches long are met with.
The most significant characteristic of a bed of this kind
is the sharpness of its boundaries. In regions where
the oysters are never disturbed by man it is not unusual
to find a hard bottom, which extends along the edge of
the shore for miles, and is divided up into a number of
oyster rocks, where the oysters are so thick that most
of them are crowded out and die long before they are
full-grown, and between these beds are areas where
not a single oyster can be found. The intervening area
is perfectly adapted for the oyster, and when a few
bushels of shells are scattered upon it they are soon
covered with young, and in a year or two a new oys-
ter rock is established upon them, but when they are
left to themselves the rocks remain sharply defined.
What is the reason for this sharp limitation of a
natural bed? Those who know the oyster only in its
adult condition may believe that it is due to the ab-
sence of power of locomotion, and they may hold that
the young oysters grew up among the old ones, just as
young oak trees grow up where the acorns fall from
the branches. This cannot be the true explanation,
for the young oysters are swimming animals, and they
are discharged into the water in countless numbers, to
be swept away to great distances by the currents. As

THE OYSTER. 87

they are too small to be seen at this time without a
microscope, it is impossible to trace their wanderings
directly, but it is possible to show indirectly that they
are carried to great distances, and that the water for
miles around the natural bed is full of them. They
serve as food for other marine animals, and when the
contents of the stomachs of these animals are carefully
examined with a microscope, the shells of the little
oysters are often found in abundance. While examin-
ing the contents of the stomach of Lingula in this way
I have found hundreds of the shells of the young oys-
ters in the swimming stage of growth, although the
specimens of Lingula were captured several miles from
the nearest oyster-bed. As Lingula is a fixed animal,
the oysters must have been brought to the spot where
the specimens were found, and as Lingula has no means
of capturing its food, and subsists upon what is swept
within its reach by the water, the presence of so many
inside its stomach shows that the water must have con-
tained great numbers of them.

It is clear, then, that the sharp limitation of the area
of a natural oyster-bed is not due to the absence in the
young of the power to reach distant points. There
is another proof of this, which is familiar to all oyster-
men — the possibility of establishing new beds without
transplanting any oysters.

I once observed an illustration of this. On part of
a large mud-flat which was bare at low tide there
were no oysters, although there was a natural bed
upon the same flats, about half a mile away.

88 THE OYSTER.

PLATE VI.

A photograph, by Dr. Caswell Grave, of an un-
worked bed, thickly covered with long narrow oysters,
among which mussels are crowded.

THE OYSTER

PLATE VI

THE OYSTER. 89

A wharf was built from high-tide mark across the
flat out to the edge of the channel, and the shells of all
the oysters which were consumed in the house were
thrown on to the mud alongside the wharf. In the
third summer the flat in the vicinity of the wharf
had become converted into an oyster-bed, with a few
medium-sized oysters and very great numbers of
young, and the bottom, which had been rather soft,
had become quite hard ; in fact, the spot presented all
the characteristics of a natural bed. Changes of this
sort are a matter of familiar experience, and it is plain
that something else besides the absence in the oyster
of locomotor power determines the size and position
of a bed.

Now what is this something else?

If the planting of dead shells will build up a new
bed, may we not conclude that a natural bed tends to
retain its position and size because the shells are there ?

This conclusion may not seem to be very important,
but I hope to show that it is really of fundamental
importance, and is essential to a correct conception of
the oyster problem.

Why should the presence of shells, which are dead
and have no power to multiply, have anything to do
with the perpetuation of a bed?

We have already called attention to the fact that
oysters are found on the hard bottom on each side of
the channel, while they are not found in the soft mud
of the channel itself, and it may at first seem as if there
were some direct connection between a hard bottom

THE OYSTER.

PLATE VII.

A photograph, by Dr. Caswell Grave, of a worked
bed covered with well shaped marketable oysters.

THE OYSTER

PLATE VII

THE OYSTER. 91

and the presence of oysters, but the fact that no oysters
are found upon the hard, firm sand of the ocean beach
shows that this is not the case. As a matter of fact,
they thrive best upon a soft bottom. They feed upon
the floating organic matter which is brought to them
by the water, and this food is most abundant where
the water flows in a strong current over a soft organic
mud. When the bottom is hard there is little food,
and this little is not favorably placed for diffusion by
the water, while the water which flows over soft mud
is rich in food.

The young oysters which settle upon or near a soft
bottom are therefore most favorably placed for pro-
curing food, but the young oyster is very small — so
small that a layer of mud as deep as the thickness of
a sheet of paper would smother and destroy it.

Hence the young oysters have the habit of fastening
themselves to solid bodies, such as shells, rocks or
piles, or floating bushes, and they are thus enabled to
profit by the soft bottoms without danger.

Owing to the peculiar shape of an oyster shell, some
portions usually project above the mud long after
most of it is buried, and its rough surface furnishes an
excellent basis for attachment. It forms one of the
very best supports for the young, and a little swimming
oyster is especially fortunate if it finds a clean shell to
adhere to when it is ready to settle down for life.
Then too, the decaying and crumbling shells are
gradually dissolved in the sea water, and thus furnish
the lime which the growing oyster needs to build up its

92 THE OYSTER.

own shell. As long as the shell is soft and thin, the
danger from enemies is very great, and this danger is
greatly diminished as soon as the shell becomes thick
enough to resist attack. It is, therefore, very necessary
that the shell should be built up as rapidly as possible,
and an abundant supply of food in general will be of no
advantage unless the supply of lime is great enough
for the growth of the shell to keep pace with the
growth of the body. All sea water contains lime in
solution, but the percentage is, of course, greatest near
the sources of supply. It is well known that on
coral reefs, which are entirely made of lime, all kinds
of shelled molluscs flourish in unusual abundance, and
have very strong and massive shells ; and our common
land and fresh-water snails are much larger and more
abundant in a limestone region than in one where
the supply of lime is scanty. In such regions it is not
unusual to find the snails gathered around old decay-
ing bones, to which they have been drawn in order to
obtain a supply of lime for their shells.

From all these causes combined it results that a
young oyster which settles upon a natural oyster-bed
has a much better chance of survival than one which
settles anywhere else, and a natural bed thus tends
to perpetuate itself and to persist as a definite, well-
defined area ; but there is still another reason. As the
flood-tide rushes up the channels it stirs up the fine
mud which has been deposited in the deep water. The
mud is swept up on the shallows along the shore,
and if these are level, much of the sediment settles

THE OYSTER. 93

there. If, however, the flat is covered by groups of
oysters, the ebbing tide does not flow off in an even
sheet, but is broken up into thousands of small chan-
nels, through which the sediment flows down, to be
swept out to sea.

The oyster-bed thus tends to keep itself clean, and
for these various reasons it follows that the more
firmly established an oyster-bed is, the better is its
chance of perpetuation, since the young spat finds
more favorable conditions where there are oysters, or
at least shells, already, than it finds anywhere else.

Now, what is the practical importance of this de-
scription of a natural bed?

It is this : Since a natural bed tends to remain per-
manent, because of the presence of oyster shells, the
shelling of bottoms where there are no oysters fur-
nishes us with a means for establishing new beds or
for increasing the area of the old ones.

The oyster dredgers state, with perfect truth, that
by breaking up the crowded clusters of oysters and
by scattering the shells, the use of the dredge tends
to enlarge the oyster-beds. The sketch which we have
just given shows the truth of this claim, but this is a
very rough and crude way of accomplishing this end,
and I shall now give a description of the means which
have been employed in different places to accomplish
the same result more efficiently and methodically.

Within recent years, much attention has been given
to the possibility of increasing the supply of oysters
by artificial means.

94 THE OYSTER.

PLATE VIII.

An old shoe, one-fourth natural size, upon which
there are forty oysters, large enough to be marketable,
besides a great number of smaller ones.

THE OYSTER.

95

The oyster is well known to be enormously prolific,
a single one giving birth in one season to many million
young ; and it is obvious that the annual supply would
be enormously increased if all the young which are
born could be reared to maturity.

Unfortunately, this is not the case, and under a
state of nature millions of oysters are born for each
one which grows to maturity. Mobius has shown
that in Europe each oyster which is born has only one
chance in one million one hundred and forty-five
thousand of reaching maturity ; I have shown that the
chances of each American oyster are very much less.

One of the most important discoveries of the last
fifty years is, that it is quite possible to save many of
these oysters by artificial means; and experiments
which have been carried on in France, as well as in
many parts of our own country, prove that this can be
done, successfully and economically, on a very large
scale.

Soon after it is born the young oyster fastens itself
to some solid body. It is at first so small that it is
smothered and killed at once if it falls upon a muddy
or slimy bottom, and its only chance for life is in the
discovery of some perfectly clean, hard body to which
it may fasten itself. Many young oysters are killed
by accidents or enemies after they have fastened them-
selves, but by far the greater number perish through
failure to find proper places for attachment; and the
whole secret of oyster culture is to furnish proper
bodies for the attachment of the young.

96 THE OYSTER.

Many methods of doing this have been devised and
employed, and the possibility of increasing the area
and value of the natural beds, and of building up new
beds, or restoring old ones, in this way has been proved.

As this is by far the most important aspect of the
oyster problem, I shall devote considerable space to
the history of these experiments, and to a description
of the means and apparatus which have been employed
for the purpose.

Although the development of this industry on a
large scale is quite modern, seed oysters for planting
have been raised artificially upon a small scale in Italy
for more than a thousand years, by a very simple
method.

Pliny tells us that the artificial breeding of oysters
was first undertaken by a Roman knight, Sergius
Grata, in the waters of Lake Avernus, and that the
enterprise was so successful that its director soon be-
came very rich.

At the present day the methods which were intro-
duced, and probably invented by Grata, are still em-
ployed by the oyster cultivators of Lake Fusaro, a
small salt-water lake. Upon the deep, black mud of
the lake they have constructed here and there heaps of
rough stones, high enough to keep them above the mud
and slime ; upon these rocks, oysters which were taken
from the sea have been placed to supply the spat, and
these breeding oysters grow and multiply and do not
need to be renewed, unless they are killed by some
accident such as a volcanic eruption. Each pile of

THE OYSTER. 97

rocks is surrounded by a circle of stakes, firmly planted
in the mud, while their upper ends are united above
water by a cord, from which, between each two stakes,
a small bundle of twigs is suspended so that it hangs
in the water near the bottom. At the spawning season
the oysters upon the central pile of rocks discharge
countless myriads of embryos into the water, and
many of them, finding, close at hand, suitable material
for their attachment, fasten themselves in great num-
bers to the twigs, and grow rapidly until, at the proper
season, the cultivators take up the stakes and bundles,
and after removing those oysters which are of a suit-
able size for the market, they replace the stakes and
fagots, and leave the small oysters to continue their
growth until the next season.

In quite modern times the study of these old methods
of oyster culture has resulted in the development of
the improved methods which are now employed in
France.

In 1853, M. De Bon, then Commissioner of Marine,
was directed by the minister to attempt to restock
certain exhausted beds by planting new oysters upon
them, and during this work, which was perfectly suc-
cessful, he discovered that, contrary to the general
opinion, the oyster can reproduce itself after it has
been transplanted to bottoms on which it never before
existed, and he at once commenced a series of experi-
ments to discover some way to collect the spat emitted
by these oysters, and he soon devised a successful
apparatus, which consisted of a rough board floor,

THE OYSTER. 99

(Figure i), raised about eight inches above the bottom,
near low-tide mark, covered by loose bunches of twigs.

With this apparatus, constructed on a very small
scale, he obtained results which showed that spat may
be collected in this manner without difficulty; but no
attempt to put the new method into practical use was
made until the subject was taken up by the well known
French fish-cultivator Coste, who, in a report to the
Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in 1855, giving
an account of his examination of the methods used at
Lake Fusaro, expresses his desire to try similar
methods in France.

Two years later the Emperor supplied the means for
experiments on a large scale, and commissioned Coste
to conduct them. Three million oysters, purchased
for the purpose, were conveyed by two small steamers
and a flotilla of small boats, to a place which had been
selected, where oyster shells had previously been
spread to serve as collectors, and after the oysters
were planted, long rows of bundles of fagots were let
down and anchored about a foot above them, as shown
in Figure 2.

At the close of the season the shells and branches,
one of which is shown in Figure 3, were found to be
covered with young oysters, and more than twenty
thousand oysters were counted on one bundle.

Before he began his work, he stated in his report for
1858, that out of twenty- three natural beds which
formerly constituted a great source of wealth, eighteen
had been completely destroyed, while the remaining

102 THE OYSTER.

beds had been so impoverished that they no longer
yielded enough oysters for planting. In another
locality, where thirteen valuable beds formerly fur-
nished employment for two hundred vessels and four-
teen hundred men for six months in each year, and
yielded an annual harvest valued at $60,000 to $80,000,
only three beds remained, and these were so depleted
that twenty boats could in a few days carry away all the
oysters.

In 1863, during six tides, upon only one-half of an
area of 100 acres which had been restocked, he ob-
tainued 16,000,000 marketable oysters.

Land was then ceded by the government to indi-
viduals, to be cultivated in the same way, and one area
of 492 acres was in a few years stocked with oysters
valued at $8,000,000.

The government farms were never very successful,
but the industry has prospered and grown steadily
under private management, and the oyster-farmers,
taught by their own experience and by the results
attained by the government in experimental parks, be-
came more self-reliant; they improved their imple-
ments and their methods of work. It may be affirmed
that in the two principal centers in which it is now
carried on, the basins of Arcachon and Morbihan, this
industry then emerged from its period of uncertainty.
The great profits realized there during the past few
years have brought oyster culture again into favor, and
turned toward it a current of labor and capital much

THE OYSTER. 103

greater than that which flowed in the same direction
after the publication of M. Coste's report.

One of the most interesting and instructive lessons
to be learned from this history of oyster farming in
France is that private industry in this field, as in all
others, can accomplish more than government ; and, as
the cultivation of private farms spreads, the advisability
of devoting all suitable grounds to this use becomes
more and more apparent.

Experience teaches, the world over, that the most
efficient agent for the preservation and development of
natural wealth is private enterprise.

The opposition in Maryland at present to the grant-
ing of any natural oyster-bed to private holders is very
strong indeed, but little insight into the future is needed
to perceive that the disappearance of this feeling would
result in an enormous increase in the prosperity of our
people.

OYSTER FARMING IN AMERICA.

The American system of oyster farming, which pre-
sents some features of resemblance to the French sys-
tem, and also many differences, has grown up as the
result of private enterprise, without any help or any
direct encouragement from government.

The French people are generally held to be the orig-
inators of modern oyster farming, but, as an Ameri-
can, I take pleasure in pointing out that our own in-
dustry, which is now so extensively developed in Con-
necticut, has not been borrowed from France, but has
grown up independently.

104 THE OYSTER.

Several years before Coste and De Bon commenced
their experiments, the oystermen of East River, hav-
ing observed that young oysters fastened in great
numbers upon shells which were placed upon the
beds at the spawning season, started the practice of
shelling the beds, in order to increase the supply, and
in 1855, or three years before Coste represented to the
French Emperor the importance of similar experi-
ments, the State of New York enacted a law to secure
to private farmers the fruits of their labor, and a num-
ber of persons engaged in the new industry on an ex-
tensive scale. Among these pioneers in this field were
Mr. Fordham, Capt. 'Henry Bell, Mr. Oliver Cook, Mr.
Weed, Mr. Hawley and others.

The industry has grown steadily from that time,
and East River is now said by Ingersoll to be the
scene of the most painstaking and scientific oyster cul-
ture in the United States. The interest and import-
ance of the subject is so great that I quote the whole
of Ingersoll's account of its origin, development, and
present methods:

" I have no doubt that, whatever was the date of its
origin, the credit of first truly propagating oysters from
seed caught upon artificial beds or prepared recepta-
cles, belongs to the men of City Island. It had been
a matter of common observation that objects tossed into
the water in summer sometimes became covered with
infant oysters. The sedges along the edge of the
marshes, and the buoys, stakes and wharf-piles were
similarly clothed. If the circumstances were favorable

THE OYSTER. 105

this deposit survived the winter, and the next spring
the youngsters were large enough to be taken and
transplanted. It was only a short step in logic, there-
fore, to conclude that if objects were thrown thickly
into the water on purpose to catch the floating spawn,
a large quantity of young oysters might be secured,
and saved for transplanting at very slight expense.
The next question was — What would best serve the
purpose? Evidently, nothing could be better than the
shells which year by year, accumulated on the shore
from the season's opening trade. They were the cus-
tomary resting-places of the spawn, and at the same
time were cheapest. The City Island oysterman, there-
fore, began to save his shells from the lime-kiln and the
road-master, and to spread them on the bottom of the
bay, hoping to save some of the oyster spawn with
which his imagination densely crowded the sea-water.
This happened, I am told, more than fifty years ago, and
the first man to put the theory into practice, it is re-
membered, was the father of the Fordham Brothers,
who still pursue the business at City Island. In 1855
Captain Henry Bell, of Bell's Island, planted shells
among the islands off the mouth of Norwalk River,
and a short time after, under the protection of the
new law of 1855, recognizing private property in such
beds, Mr. Oliver Cook, of Five Mile River ; Mr. Weed,
of South Norwalk; Mr. Hawley, of Bridgeport, and
others, went into it on an extensive scale. Some of
these gentlemen appear never to have heard of any
previous operations of this sort. Discovering it for
9

106 THE OYSTER.

themselves, as it was easy and natural to do, they sup-
posed they were the originators ; but if any such credit
attaches anywhere, I believe it belongs to the City Island
men. It was soon discovered that uniform success
was not to be hoped for, and the steady, magnificent
crops reaped by the earliest planters were rarely
emulated. Many planters, therefore, distrusted the
whole scheme, and returned to their simple transplant-
ing of natural-bed seed; but others, with more con-
sistency, set at work to improve their chances by
making more and more favorable the opportunities for
an oyster's egg successfully to attach itself, during its
brief natatory life, to the stool prepared for it, and
afterward to live to an age when it was strong enough
to hold its own against the weather. This involved
a closer study of the general natural history of the
oyster.

" The first thing found out was that the floating
spawn would not attach itself to or ' set ' upon any-
thing which had not a clean surface; smoothness did
not hinder — glass bottles were frequently coated out-
side and in with young shells — but the surface of the
object must not be slimy. It was discovered, too,
that the half-sedimentary, half-vegetable deposit of the
water, coating any submerged object with a slippery
film, was formed with marvelous speed. Thus shells
laid down a very few days before the spawning-time
of the oysters sometimes become so slimy as to catch
little or no spawn, no matter how much of it is floating
in the water above them. This taught the oystermen

THE OYSTER. 107

that they must not spread their shells until the midst
of the spawning season ; that one step was gained
when they ceased spreading in May and waited until
July. Now, from the 5th to I5th of that month is
considered the proper time, and no shell-planting is
attempted before or after/'

These dates are for the waters of New York. In
Maryland, the month of June is most favorable for the
attachment of spat. The date varies, however, accord-
ing to the locality, the depth of water, the character
of the season and other influences. Good judgment
as to the proper time for shelling the bottom can
be acquired only by experience, but a series of exact
experiments in different parts of the bay would be of
great value, as they would afford data for the guidance
of private cultivators.

' The knowledge of the speed with which the shells
become slimy was turned to account in another way.
It was evident that the swifter the current the less
would there be a chance of rapid fouling. Planters,
therefore, chose their ground in the swiftest tideways
they could find."

" The mere manner of spreading the shells was also
found to be important. If they are rudely dumped
over, half their good is wasted, for they lie in heaps.
The proper method is to take them from the large
scow or sloop which has brought them ashore, in
small boat-loads. Having anchored the skiff, the
shells are then flirted broadcast in all directions, by
the shovelful. The next boat-load is anchored a little

108 THE OYSTER.

further on, and the process repeated. Thus a thin
and evenly-distributed layer is spread over the whole
ground. Just how many bushels a man will place on
an acre depends upon both his means and his judg-
ment. If he is shelling entirely new ground, he will
spread more than he would upon an area already im-
proved; but I suppose 250 bushels to the acre might
be recommended as an average quantity."

This is very much too small a quantity, and in our
waters, five or six times as many shells, from 1000 to
1 200 bushels, should be used. The amount that is
required depends upon the nature of the bottom, many
more shells being needed for a muddy bottom than for
a hard one.

" Having spread his shells in midsummer, the planter,
by testing them early in the fall, can tell whether he has
succeeded in catching upon them any or much of the
desired spawn. The young oysters will appear as
minute flakes, easily detected by the experienced eye,
attached to all parts of the old shell. If he has got no
set whatever, he considers his investment a total loss,
since by the next season the bed of shells will have
become so dirty that the spawn will not take hold if it
comes that way. Supposing, on the contrary, that
young oysters are found attached in millions to his
cultch, as often happens, crowding upon each old shell
until it is almost hidden, what is his next step ?

" The ordinary way in the East River and else-
where, is simply to let the bed remain quiet, until in
the course of three or four years, such oysters as have

THE OYSTER.

109

survived are large enough to sell, when the bed is
worked — at first, probably, with tongs and rakes, get-
ting up the thickest of the crop. This done, dredges
are put on, and everything that remains — oysters,
shells and trash — is removed and the ground left
clean, ready for a second shelling, or to be planted with
seed.

" In the process of growth of the young oysters
lodged upon the fields of cultch, when left undis-
turbed, there is, and must of necessity be, a great
waste under the most favorable circumstances. Leav-
ing out all other adversities, this will arise from over-
crowding. More ' blisters ' attach themselves upon a
single shell than can come to maturity. One or a few
will obtain an accession of growth over the rest, and
crowd the others down, or overlap them fatally. Even
if a large number of young oysters attached to a sin-
gle stool do grow up together equally, their close
elbowing of one another will probably result in a
closed, crabbed bunch of long, slim unshapely sam-
ples, of no value save to be shucked. To avoid these
misfortunes, and, having got a large quantity of young
growth, to save as much as possible of it, the more
advanced and energetic of the planters, like the Hoyts,
of Norwalk, pursue the following plan: When the
bed is two years old, by which time all the young oys-
ters are of sufficient age and hardiness to bear the
removal, coarse-netted dredges are put on, and all the
bunches of oysters are taken up, knocked to pieces,
and either sold as ' seed/ or redistributed over a new

HO THE OYSTER.

portion of bottom, thus widening the planted area, and
at the same time leaving more room for those single
oysters to grow which have slipped through the net
and so escaped the dredge. The next year after, all
the plantation, new and old, is gone over and suitable
stock culled out for trade, three-year old East River
oysters being in demand for the European market.
This further thins out the beds, and the following
(fourth) year the main crop of fine, well-shaped, well-
fed oysters will be taken, and during the succeeding
summer, or perhaps after a year, the ground will be
thoroughly well cleaned up and prepared for a new
shelling.

" All these remarks apply to a reasonably hard
bottom which requires no previous preparation. In
portions of Long Island Sound, especially off New
Haven, it has been needful to make a crust or artificial
surface upon the mud before laying down the shells.
This is done with sand, and has been alluded to in
the chapter on New Haven harbor.

" Just what makes the best lodgment for oyster-
spawn intended to be used as seed, has been greatly
discussed. Oyster shells are very good, certainly, and
as they are cheap and almost always at hand in even
troublesome quantities, they form the most available
cultch, and are most generally used. Small gravel,
however, has been tried on parts of the Connecticut
coast with great success, the advantage being that not
often more than one or two oysters would be attached,
and therefore the evil of bunchiness would be avoided.

THE OYSTER. II:

Where scallop shells, as in Narragansett Bay, or, as in
northern New Jersey mussels and jingles, Anomia, can
be procured in sufficient quantities, they are undoubt-
edly better than anything else, because they not only
break easily in culling, but are so fragile that the strain
of the growth of two or more oysters attached to a
single scallop or muscle-valve will often crack it in
pieces, and so permit the several members of the bunch
to separate and grow into good shape singly. I am
not aware that any of the elaborate arrangements made
in France and England for catching and preserving
the spat have ever been imitated here, to any practical
extent. The time will come, no doubt, when we shall
be glad to profit by this foreign example and ex-
perience.

" Although the effort to propagate oysters by catch-
ing drifting spawn upon prepared beds has been tried
nearly everywhere from Sandy Hook to Providence,
it has only, in the minority of cases, perhaps I might
say a small minority of cases, proved a profitable un-
dertaking to those engaging in it ; and many planters
have abandoned the process, or at least calculated but
little upon any prepared beds, in estimating the prob-
able income of the prospective season. This arises
from one of two causes: 1st, the failure of spawn to
attach itself to the cultch ; or, 2d, in case a ' set ' occurs,
a subsequent death or destruction.

' The supposition among oystermen generally has
been that the water everywhere upon the coast was
filled, more or less, with drifting oyster-spat during

112 THE OYSTER.

the spawning season, whether there was any bed of
oysters in the immediate neighborhood or not. In
other words, that there was hardly any limit to the time
and distance the spat would drift with the tides, winds
and currents. I think that lately this view has been
modified by most fishermen, and I am certain it greatly
needs modification; but, as a consequence of the
opinion, it was believed that one place was as good as
another, so long as there was a good current or tideway
there, to spread shells for spawn, whether there were
any living oysters in proximity or not. But that this
view was fallacious, and that many acres of shells have
never exhibited a single oyster, simply because there
was no spat or sources of spat in their vicinity, there is
no reason to doubt.

" Having learned this, planters began to see that they
must place with or near their beds of shells living
mother-oyster, called ' spawners/ which should supply
the desired spat. This is done in two ways — either by
laying a narrow bed of old oysters across the tideway
in the center of the shelled tract, so that the spawn, as
it is emitted, may be carried up and down over the
breadth of shells waiting to accommodate it, or by
sprinkling spawners all about the ground, at the rate
of about ten bushels to the acre. Under these arrange-
ments, the circumstances must be rare and exceptional
when a full set will not be secured upon all shells
within, say twenty rods of the spawners. Of course
fortunate positions may be found where spawn is pro-
duced in abundance from wild oysters, or from con-

THE OYSTER. 113

tiguous planted beds, where the distribution of special
spawners is unnecessary ; yet even then it may be said
to be a wise measure.

" The successful capture of a plenteous ' set,' how-
ever, is not all of the game. This must grow to sala-
ble maturity before any profits can be gathered, and it
so often happens that the most promising beds in Sep-
tember are utterly wrecked by January, making a total
loss of all the money and labor expended, that more
than one planter has decided that it does not pay to
attempt to raise oysters upon shells, so long as he is
able to buy and stock his grounds with half-grown
seed — a decision which may be based upon sound
reasoning in respect to certain localities, but which
certainly will not apply to all of our northern coast.

" The great drawback to East River oyster-planting,
of every kind, is the abundance of enemies with which
the beds are infested. These consist of drum-fish,
skates, and, to a small degree, of various other fishes ;
of certain sponges and invertebrates that do slight
damage, and of various boring molluscs, the crushing
winkle, and the insidious star-fish or sea-star. It is
the last-named plague that the planter dreads the most,
and the harm that may be directly traced to it amounts
to many tens of thousands of dollars annually in this
district alone. Indeed, it seems to have here its head-
quarters on the American oyster coast, where it has
utterly ruined many a man's whole year's work."

Ingersoll states that 20 bushels of shells laid down
anywhere in the upper part of Barnegat Bay, New

II4 THE OYSTER.

Jersey, will produce 100 bushels of seed oysters, but
that there is no protection for this industry, as popu-
lar construction makes such beds " natural ground."

At Brookham Bay, off the south coast of Long Island,
in the region of the well-known " blue point " oysters,
it has been the custom for several years to lay down
shells, scrap-tin, etc., for the attachment of the young,
and when this is done near any oyster-bed, or whenever
spawning oysters are planted among the shells, there is
rarely a failure to get plenty of young.

The Delaware planters often find that after a bottom
has been used for many years for planting, the young
oysters grow upon the shells which gradually accumu-
late, and a very valuable artificial oyster-bed is thus
established. The law-abiding citizens respect the pri-
vate ownership of these beds, and they are a source of
wealth to their possessor.

I quote from the " Report of the Shell-Fish Com-
missioners/' of Connecticut, for 1883, the following
statement of the present condition of the industry in
that State:

" The deep-water cultivators proceed in three differ-
ent ways to make beds. (i). The bottom being prop-
erly cleared off, the seed oysters, mixed with the
gravel, jingles and other shells just as they are gathered
from the natural beds, are distributed thereon more or
less uniformly, and there left to grow. (2). Or the
bottom is spread over with clean oyster shells just be-
fore the spawning season begins, brood oysters, twenty-
five bushels to the acre, are distributed over the bed.

THE OYSTER. 115

(3). Or, if the bed is in the neighborhood of natural
beds, the shelled bed is left without further preparation
to catch the spawn as it is drifted above it. Sometimes
the shells fail to ' catch a set/ and this makes it neces-
sary to rake over the shells the following year, or to
cover them over with more fresh shells for the next
spawning. There is always an abundance of spawn in
the waters of the Sound, and when a set is secured an
enormous crop is the result. On a private deep-water
bed, during the past summer, the dredge was drawn at
random in the presence of the commissioners, and from
an ordinary-size shovelful there were counted 206
young oysters in excellent condition, of the average
size of a quarter of a dollar. As many as a hundred
young oysters have been counted growing on a
medium-sized oyster shell.

" The beds are carefully tended, and no pains are
spared to kill all the enemies of the oysters found
among them. By continual vigilance the private beds
are kept comparatively free from them. The larger
proprietors of deep-water beds use steamers for this
work, as also in doing their work of planting, raking
over and dredging, and they use larger dredges than
the sail vessels can, as they are also worked by steam
at a great saving of labor and expense. When the
oysters have grown on these beds to a merchantable
size they are sometimes sold directly from the beds,
but more frequently they are transplanted into brackish
or fresh waters, where they are permitted to remain
for a short period to freshen and fatten for market."

Il6 THE OYSTER.

PLATE IX.

FIGURE i. A pipe, upon the bowl of which six oys-
ters have grown ; from the Chesapeake Bay.

FIGURE 2. An oyster shell upon the inside of which
about one hundred and fifty young- oysters have fas-
ened themselves. This is from the lot of shells which
were sold by Mr. Church, of Crisfield, from the pile of
shells at his packing-house, to an oyster farmer in Long
Island Sound. Mr. Church visited the farm five weeks
after the shells were shipped, and took up a number of
the shells, and he states that the one which is here fig-
ured is a fair sample.

THE OUSTER

PLATE IX.

A.HDEn X CD.Lithncaustic.Baltimnre .

THE OYSTER. 117

The Connecticut oystermen have many obstacles
and risks, from which our own waters are free, and
many of the farms have been completely ruined by
starfish and other enemies, but notwithstanding all
these drawbacks, the crop, which was 336,000 bushels
in 1880, had increased in 1888 to 1,454,000 bushels.

During the period of his employment by the French
Government to replenish the oyster grounds, Coste
devised a number of plans for furnishing an attach-
ment for the oyster spat, and these devices have been
greatly improved by other experiments.

Most of them could be employed in our own waters
with advantage, and in order to make our people ac-
quainted with them, we will give a brief description of
the more important substances which have been thus
employed. Some of them are adapted for certain
localities, while others can be used to best advantage
under other conditions. Our people have long been
noted for their ingenuity, and there is no doubt that,
as the great importance of oyster-farming comes to be
appreciated among us, we shall have many great im-
provements in the methods of procuring seed oysters,
better adapted for our own needs than any which are
here described, but our account will serve to show
our people the general direction in which their inven-
tive skill must be directed.

Oyster Shells. — At present no spat-collector seems
to be better adapted for use in our waters upon hard
bottoms than oyster shells, and they are now the
cheapest collectors that can be used.

Il8 THE OYSTER.

In order to serve this purpose the shells must be
perfectly clean, and as the old dead shells, which
have lain for a long time upon the oyster-beds, are
torn to pieces by the boring sponge and covered with
mud and slime, hydroids, sea-weed and sponges, they
are much less effective than those which are placed in
the water just before the spawning season.

In regions where there is no danger from frost, or
where the young growth is to be planted in deeper
water before winter, the shells may be deposited at or
even above low-water mark, and in the sounds of
North Carolina oysters thrive even at high-tide mark.
The shells should be deposited in the early summer —
in June, July and August — in localities where there is
enough current to sweep the swimming young past
them. A hard bottom is to be preferred, but this
method may be employed with great advantage upon
any soft bottoms which are near the surface. In this
case the shells should not be uniformly distributed,
but placed in piles or ridges. If these ridges are
properly arranged with reference to the direction of
the current, they will produce secondary currents, and
will thus cause the soft mud to flow off between them.
In this way any bottom which is bare or nearly bare
at low tide, and which is exposed to the winds and
waves, may in time be swept nearly clear of mud.
Each time the tide comes in the mud is stirred up and
suspended in the water, and as the tide ebbs this sus-
pended matter is swept into the channels between the
obstructions and is carried away. Shells are very

THE OYSTER.

119

effective as spat-collectors. Shell wharves built out
into deep water, so as to catch and turn the passing
current, are often found to be covered with young oys-
ters at all stages of growth and in good condition for
planting.

The month of June is usually the best time for
shelling the bottom. The early part of the month for
warm seasons and shallow water, and the end of the
month for cold springs, or deep water. The quantity
of shells varies according to circumstances, but in most
cases 1000 bushels to the acre are not too many.

In shallow waters, where the shells are uncovered at
low tide, they may be examined to pick out, for distri-
bution upon the planting grounds, those which have
young oysters upon them, but in deeper waters the
shells must be picked up with tongs or dredges, or
they may be strung upon wires and sunk in deep
water on suitable frames.

The chief objection to the use of shells is that the
method is a wasteful one. It is not unusual for fifty or
a hundred young oysters to fasten upon one shell,
and as the shells are too strong to be broken without
injuring the young oysters, these cannot be detached,
and most of them are soon crowded out and killed by
the growth of the others.

The use of tiles has, therefore, been introduced in
France to avoid this loss.

As tiles can be employed without difficulty in deep
water, they are well adapted for use in our bay. Those
which are used in France are much like a common

120 THE OYSTER.

drain pipe sawed in two longitudinally. They cannot
be obtained in our markets at present, although they
could be made very cheaply if there were any demand
for them. Each tile is about 18 inches or 2 feet long,
6 or 8 inches wide, concave on one side and convex
on the other. The shape of the tile is important, as
nearly all the oysters fasten themselves upon the con-
cave surface. They adhere so firmly that it is difficult
to detach them without injury, and to avoid this the
French oyster-breeders coat the tiles with a thin white-
wash, which can be scaled off with the young oysters
when these are large enough to be distributed upon
the planting grounds.

The following is an account of the method of coat-
ing the tiles as employed in France.

The liming is done in two very different ways at
Morbihan, according to whether it is intended to en-
tirely free the oysters from the tile, or to allow a por-
tion of the tile to remain attached to each shell.

When we come to speak of the removal of the oys-
ters from the collectors, we will make some remarks
concerning the matter of leaving a portion of the tile
attached to the young. For the present we will merely
state that under that system the tile is cut, leaving a
portion adhering to each oyster, forming a sort of
heel.

Some of our farmers, who breed oysters in this
manner, cover their tiles with a slight coating of
hydraulic cement. The young oyster attaches itself
to the cement, but the coating being very thin is soon

THE OYSTER. 121

worn away, leaving the oyster quite firmly fixed to
the tile.

Others, on the contrary, who prefer to separate the
oysters entirely from the tile with the blade of a
knife, when they are about six months old, generally
cover the tile with two layers, and proceed in a different
manner.

Quicklime is slacked just before it is to be used, and
is put, while still in a state of ebullition, into a large
vat, where two- thirds the same quantity of sand have
been placed. The mixture is stirred until it has at-
tained the consistency of clear broth. The collectors,
held by the lower end, are dipped into the vat. One
immersion suffices, after which they are taken in hand-
barrows and exposed to the air to dry before setting
them up. This excellent coating should be prepared
with fresh water only ; sea-water prevents its adhering
for any length of time to the tiles, and if it comes off
the labor is of course lost. After this coating of lime
has hardened, the tiles are dipped a second time into
a bath of hydraulic cement, after which they are ready
for use.

Tiles may be used as spat-collectors in either deep
or shallow water. On the French coast they are chiefly
employed above low-tide mark or in very shallow
water, and they are then spread out so as to cover a
considerable area. In some cases lines of stakes are
driven into the ground, about a foot apart, transverse
string-pieces are fastened to them about a foot above
the bottom, a row of tiles is laid upon them, concave
10

122 THE OYSTER.

surface down, another row of tiles is placed at right
angles upon the first layer, and the whole is weighted
with stones. Other ways of arranging the tiles are
shown as Figs. 5, 6, and 7.

As soon as the oysters are large enough to handle,
they should be removed from the tiles and distributed
on the planting ground, for they usually become so
crowded together on the tiles that they have no room
to grow.

When used in deep water they may be fastened to
a frame, which may be sunk upon or near a natural
oyster-bed. So far as I am informed, Lieut. Francis
Winslow is the only person who has ever made use
of tile-collectors in American waters, but the remark-
able results which he obtained with them in Tangier
Sound, in 1879, show that they are well suited for
use in the waters of the bay, where they are perfectly
successful as spat-collectors.

Lieut. Winslow's interesting figures of these tiles
form the most complete record of the rate of growth
of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay which has ever been
obtained, and his results are so valuable that I have
copied six of his plates. He made use of a collector
which was made by lashing eight or sixteen tiles to a
wooden frame, which rested on the bottom upon a
natural bed of oysters, while the tiles themselves
were raised about six inches, and were joined by a
rope to a floating buoy to mark their position. An
apparatus of this sort was sunk in Big Annamessex
River on July 9, and on August 2, 348 young oysters

FIG. 5.

FIG. 7.

124 THE OYSTER.

PLATES X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV.

Tiles which were deposited in the Little Annamessex River
by Lieut. Francis Winslow, U. S. N., on July 9, 1879, for the
collection of oyster spat. From Winslow's Report on the
Oyster Beds of Tangier and Pokamoke Sounds.

PLATES X AND XL Upper and lower surfaces of a
tile which was removed on August 2, twenty-four days
after it had been placed in the water.

PLATES XII AND XIII. Upper and lower surfaces
of a tile which was removed on August 23, forty-five
days after it had been placed in the water.

PLATES XIV AND XV. Upper and lower surfaces
of a tile which was removed on October 10, about three
months after it had been placed in the water.

THE OVSTER

PLATE X.

A.HDEn£Ca.LitVmcaustic,BahimorE.

THE OVSTER

PLATE XL

A.Hnen X Ca.Lithncaustic.BahimnrE

THE OYSTER

PLATE XII

A.HDKH & Ca.Lithocaustic.BahimorE .

'HE OVSTER

PLATE XIII

A.Hosn X Co.Lithncaustic.BahimurE

THE OYSTER

PLATE XIV

A.HDETI £ Cn.Lifhncaustin.Baltii

THE OYSTER. 125

were counted on one tile, which is shown in Plates
X and XL On October 10, most of these had
grown to a size of three-quarters of an inch, as shown
in Plates XIV and XV.

Attempts to collect spat by artificial means are not
always successful, and experience has shown that
clean collectors are essential, and that failure is usu-
ally due to the presence of mud or other sediment
upon their surface. As this sediment accumulates very
rapidly, and as an extremely thin layer is enough
to prevent the young oysters from becoming firmly
fastened, it is important that the shells or other sub-
stances which are employed be perfectly clean, and
that they be not put into the water until spawning
has commenced.

I have made many experiments in order to discover
the conditions which are most favorable for a good
" set " of spat, and I have satisfied myself that those
collectors are most reliable which are nearest the sur-
face of the water. They are much less exposed to
deposits of sediment than those in deeper water, and
my studies upon the embryology of the oyster have
shown that as soon as the embryo begins to swim it
comes to the surface, and swims for about two days
within half an inch of the top. I have been very suc-
cessful with floating collectors, and, in Plate XVI, I
have figured a boulder which had been for six weeks
in one of them, a few inches from the surface, and had
furnished a lodgment for many hundred oysters,

I26 THE OYSTER.

crowded so closely together that I was unable to
count them.

It frequently happens that bottoms where the spat
may be present in the water, are so muddy that such
collectors as tiles or shells cannot be used. The -French
have invented a collector to be used in such cases as
this, which they call the fascine collector. This con-
sists of a bundle or fagot of small branches of chest-
nut, oak, elm, birch, or any other suitable wood, about
ten or twelve feet long, bound together in the middle
by a tarred galvanized iron wire, which is fastened to
a stone, by which the bundle is anchored about a foot
above the bottom. These fascines are placed upon or
near the beds of oysters at the spawning season, and
are distributed in places where the set of the tides and
currents will carry the swimming oyster larvae to them.
The young oysters settle upon the branches in great
numbers, and attaching themselves, grow rapidly, and
it is not unusual for one such fagot to yield several
thousand. The bundles are left undisturbed for five
or six months, and at the end of this time they are large
enough to be detached from the branches, when they
are ready for distribution upon the planting grounds.

This method of collecting seed oysters has never,
so far as I am aware, been employed in this country,
although the experience of all who are familiar with
our oyster waters must have shown how readily the
young growth become attached to floating or sunken
bushes. Our waters abound in places which are well
fitted for the employment of this method of gathering

THE OYSTER.

127

the seed which is to be used in planting, and the fas-
cine collectors might be used in the mouths of creeks
or inlets, or along the edges of the channels, or any-
where where the set of the current will sweep the
swimming oysters past the collector. While it would
be advantageous to place the collectors near natural
beds or rocks, this is by no means essential, for the
young of the American oyster survive for a long time
in the water, and they are carried to great distances by
the current, and there is no part of our oyster area
beyond the reach of this floating spat.

The method may be employed on either hard or
soft bottom, as the collectors float above the surface of
the ground, but is especially adapted for bottoms too
soft for planting, and such bottoms may in this way
be made valuable as seed farms. The collectors may
be placed in either deep or shallow water, wherever
there is a current.

With the exception of Winslow's experiments with
tiles, very little use has been made in America of any-
thing, except oyster shells, for collecting spat; but at
one point in Connecticut, a plan which is essentially
like the one last described has been used with good
results for capturing spat, and for rearing marketable
oysters as well, upon bottoms of soft mud.'

These experiments are thus described in the reports
of the Connecticut Shell Fish Commission for 1882
and 1883:

" The soft, muddy tracts, also, which aggregate a

128 THE OYSTER.

PLATE XVI.
Spat six weeks old, from a floating collector.

THE OYSTER.

129

large number of acres now neglected, it is believed will,
at no far distant day, become valuable for cultivation.

" The efforts made to grow oysters on muddy bot-
toms in the Poquonock River, near Groton, to which
reference was made in the last year's report, have
been uniformly successful, as many as a thousand
bushels of superior oysters having been obtained from
one acre. No particular skill is required in carrying
on similar experiments, and it is probable that the
method will be generally followed throughout the
State, where similar bottoms are found.

" On the Poquonock, River near Groton, white birch
bushes are stuck in the river mud, about spawning
time, in fourteen or fifteen feet of water at low tide.
To these the spat adheres in great quantities. They
are left undisturbed eighteen months, by which time
the set becomes good-sized seed. On one bush, which
was four inches through at the butt, twenty-five bushels
of oysters were found, seven of which were large
enough for market. The average yield is about five
bushels to the bush. The grounds are so soft and
muddy that no other method is feasible. About fifty
acres are under this kind of cultivation, and the area
is rapidly extending. The bushes are grappled out of
the mud by derricks. The oysters are of excellent
flavor, and the business is profitable."

Besides such simple but very effective devices for
collecting spat, there have been invented in France a
number of complicated mechanical devices for use
under peculiar circumstances. The price of oysters

130 THE OYSTER.

is not high enough with us to justify the practical
use of any such expensive machinery, so it will be
unnecessary to speak of any of it.

The aim of all the methods of oyster culture which
have been described is to increase the number of oys-
ters, by furnishing proper substances for collecting the
swimming embryos at the time when they are ready
to attach themselves. In all our northern waters, and
as far south as the Chesapeake Bay, clean oyster shells
are in nearly all cases the best substances to use for the
the purpose, and there is hardly a spot anywhere in
the bay which might not ultimately be converted into
an oyster-bed, by this simple method of cultivation,
which has been shown, in all parts of the world, where
it has been tried, to yield a very great return for the
capital and labor employed.

There are few parts of the world which offer ad-
vantages for the prosecution of this industry equal
to those afforded by the Bay, and there is no other
place where these advantages are presented on such a
great area of bottom. Our oyster grounds, of course,
vary in value, according to local conditions, and oyster
culture is much more easy and profitable in some
places than in others ; but in course of time even the
soft, muddy bottoms of the deepest channels may be
brought under cultivation, and there is scarcely a
foot of the bottom where oysters cannot be reared.
The number of oysters which the Bay might be made
to furnish annually is almost too great for computa-
tion, but we may very safely assert that it is greater

THE OYSTER. 131

than the total number which has been taken from our
waters in the past.

All that is needed in order to make this great source
of wealth available to our people, is permission to en-
gage in oyster farming. When the citizens of Mary-
land demand the right to enter into this industry,
and to reclaim their property which is now going to
waste, a new era of prosperity will be introduced, and
the oyster area will be developed with great rapidity.

I have shown that upon undredged natural beds
solid substances become so thickly covered with young
oysters that they have no room to grow, so that most
of them are soon crowded out and killed.

All localities are not equally favorable for the col-
lection of spat, and in the best places the amount
which can be collected each season is very much
greater than the amount which it needed for stocking
the bottom. This excess can be profitably used as
" seed " for stocking bottoms in shallow, landlocked
bays, rivers, and other places which are less fitted for
the collection of spat. While oyster-planting, as the
sowing of these " seed " oysters is called, does not
result in the production of new oysters, it is a very
profitable industry, and it admits of great development.

The profits are smaller and the labor greater than
those of oyster farming in deep water, but oyster-plant-
ing requires little capital, and the shores of the bay
abound in proper spots for the prosecution of this in-
dustry, the importance of which has long been recog-
nized by our people.

132 THE OYSTER.

There are many bottoms where there are no natural
oysters, simply because there is nothing upon the
ground for the spat to catch upon, or because they
are not places to which spat is carried ; and there are
other bottoms which are so soft that a very young and
small oyster would be ,buried in the mud and killed,
although larger ones are able to live and thrive in the
mud. In all these places oyster-planting may be car-
ried on with profit, for while it is true that the total
number of oysters which are born is not increased by
planting, the number which reach maturity is greatly
increased; for the young oysters fasten themselves so
close together and in such great numbers that the
growth of one involves, under natural conditions, the
crowding out and destruction of hundreds of others,
which might have been saved by scattering them over
unoccupied ground.

Planting also adds very greatly to the value of oys-
ters, as they grow more rapidly and are of better
quality when thus scattered than they are upon the
natural beds, and Ingersoll, in his " Report on the Oys-
ter Industry of the United States," quotes the state-
ment of Captain Cox, of New Jersey, that thirteen
dollars' worth of small " seed " oysters yielded, after
they had been planted for two years, oysters which
were sold for $ni, besides about thirty bushels which
were used as food by the planter's family.

Oyster-planting can be carried on only on private
grounds, and it cannot flourish in a community which

THE OYSTER. 133

does not respect the right of the private owner to the
oysters which he has planted.

The " five-acre law " of Maryland puts it within the
power of any resident of the State to obtain land for
this purpose, but the industry has never attained to
much importance here, partly on account of the absence
of sufficient protection, and partly no doubt through the
feeling that our large and apparently inexhaustible
natural beds render private enterprise unnecessary.

In Virginia more attention has been given to plant-
ing, and in some of the States north of us all the land
that is fit for the purpose is thus occupied. In many
States, as in Delaware, a great part of New Jersey,
and especially in Rhode Island, the natural beds have
been so heavily drawn upon that they long ago ceased
to furnish any marketable oysters, and they are now
valuable only as a source from which a supply of
small oysters can be gathered each year for planting.
The spat from the few mature oysters which escape
the fishermen, and that which drifts on to the beds from
the planting grounds and from the scattered oysters
which still exist in protected places, keep up the sup-
ply from year to year, and its value is increased hun-
dreds of times by the planting system.

The industry does not require a large capital, and it
can be carried on with profit on a very small scale,
although the oysters need constant and intelligent at-
tention. In all places where it has been employed it
has added greatly to the prosperity of the communities
which have engaged in it, and has greatly increased

134

THE OYSTER.

the population of the shores along which it has been
encouraged and protected.

A writer about thirty years ago states that the pros-
perity and rapid increase of the population of Staten
Island are chiefly due to the encouragement and growth
of the oyster-planting industry. At Prince's Bay, on
that island, there has been some planting for more
than sixty years, but before the bottom was laid out
in private plantations there were very few persons liv-
ing there, and the land was almost uncultivated ; while
in 1853 the number of inhabitants who depended
directly upon this business for support had increased to
over 3000.

! In some of the Northern States oyster-planting has
been carried on for many years. Ingersoll states that
oysters have been planted in York Bay, in New Jersey,
since 1810, and that a suit was brought in Shrewsbury,
New Jersey, at about the same date, to determine
whether a man has the exclusive right to the oysters
which he has planted.

The history of the oyster industry of Rhode Island
furnishes an interesting illustration of the value of an
intelligent system of planting.

In 1865 laws were passed allowing the leasing to
private citizens, for a term of years, at an annual rental
of $10 per acre, of the right to plant oysters on any
bottoms which are covered with water at low tide and
are not within any harbor line, to be used as a private
oyster fishery for the planting and cultivation of
oysters, whether these lands contain natural beds or

THE OYSTER. 135

not ; and efficient laws were enacted for the protection
of private rights.

The effect of this measure has been good in every
respect. The revenue of the State has been greatly
increased, and it is stated that the rentals of the beds
will in time pay all the expenses of the State govern-
ment.

In 1865 oysters sold for $1.75 per solid gallon; in
1878 the price was $1.15 to $1.10, and in 1879 it had
fallen to 9O@95 cents.

In 1865 tne product of the State was 71,894 bushels,
while in 1879 it was 660,500 bushels.

The area which was used for planting in 1879 was
only 962 acres, yet this area paid $6582.90 into the
State treasury; it employed a capital of over $1,000,-
ooo; it paid $125,000 in wages to the people of the
State ; it furnished the market with 660,500 bushels of
oysters, with $680,500 to the producers, and it gave
support to 2400 persons.

Until 1883 the Rhode Island grounds had been used
only for planting, and most of the seed oysters were
purchased from other States, yet the planted oysters
sold for three or four times the cost of the seed, and
it is doubtful whether there is any farming land in the
United States which yields as great a profit to the
acre as the bottoms which are used for oyster-planting
in Rhode Island.

Our little revenue to the State treasury of about
fifty thousand dollars from nearly a million acres sinks
into insignificance when compared with the eleven

136 THE OYSTER.

thousand dollars which Rhode Island receives from
her eleven hundred acres, and her beds are constantly
improving in value, while ours are rapidly becoming
worthless under our present policy.

In the early days of Rhode Island oysters were
found there in the greatest abundance, but although
dredging was forbidden in 1766, under penalty of ten
pounds fine, the natural beds have been so depleted
by excessive tonging that they are now of little value,
and they supply only a very small part of the seed
used in planting. If all the area of our own State
which is proper for oyster-planting were used in this
way, it would, if no more profitable than the oyster
grounds of Rhode Island, bring the inconceivable
sum of two thousand million dollars into the hands of
the planters each year.

The oyster industry of Delaware furnishes an in-
structive illustration of the value of oyster-planting.
The natural beds of this State are not equal to a two-
hundredth part of those of our State, but under a law
which allows any citizen to appropriate fifteen acres of
ground where there are no natural oysters, upon pay-
ment of a fee of $25 and an annual license fee of $3
per ton for the boat used, a system of planting has
grown up which is encouraged by public sentiment
and is a great source of wealth.

Until recent times nearly half of the million bushels
of seed oysters which were planted annually upon
these beds were taken from our waters, and they cost
the planter less than twenty-five cents per bushel, put

THE OYSTER. 137

down upon his beds. These oysters were taken up
within three or four months, and then sold for more
than eighty cents per bushel.

A method of oyster-planting in artificial ponds has
been highly developed in France, where it is found
to yield an adequate return for the labor and capital
invested, as oysters fattened in this way sell for fifty
per cent more than those from the natural beds. The
method involves considerable labor, and it is doubtful
whether the price of oysters in this country is as yet
high enough to render this industry profitable.

The culture of oysters in the deeper waters of the
Bay, and the establishment of new oyster-beds by col-
lecting the floating spat upon clean shells and other
proper substances, is very much more important than
the encouragement of oyster-planting ; but the various
extracts and illustrations which have been given are
surely enough to show the very great advantages
which we should derive from a thorough system of
planting. Deep-water cultivation cannot be under-
taken to advantage on a small scale, and it requires
both capital and expensive appliances ; but oyster-
planting can be carried on without any great expense,
and as success in it depends to a great degree upon
constant intelligent supervision, small cultivators will
always have the advantage of those who attempt more
extensive operations.

The most serious obstacle to the development of a
great planting industry in Maryland is the absence of
all respect for private property in oysters. In enclosed
11

138 THE OYSTER.

or artificial ponds oysters would be much more safe
from theft than in open water, and the shores of the
bay abound in suitable spots for the construction of
ponds after the French system. Under our present
system oysters are often sacrificed or sold at unre-
munerative prices, because there is no way to keep them
in good condition until they can be sold to advantage.
A system of ponds after the French pattern, for the
temporary storage of oysters, would be a very profit-
able piece of property in the vicinity of any large center
of the packing business, and the experience of the
French planters shows that the construction of storage
ponds where the oysters may be kept in good order,
and where they will continue to grow and to increase
in value, is a very simple matter.

This industry has also the great advantage that it
does not need legislative protection. It can be put into
practice at once by any one who owns land which is
suitable for the purpose, and our State contains hun-
dreds of acres of low, marshy land which is now private
property, although it is of little or no value to its
owners. Small streams and inlets which are not nav-
igable, and which lie within the limits of private land,
may be converted into ponds like the French claires at
very slight expense, and with no more labor than what
is required for ordinary agriculture they could be made
much more profitable than the best farming land.

The oyster-planting industry in the open water is
also a most important interest, and the attention of
statesmen may well be directed to its development ; for

THE OYSTER. 139

while legislation alone cannot build up a planting in-
dustry, it may do much to prepare the way for it.

In another chapter I shall try to show what our
State can do to encourage oyster culture in general,
but I wish also to say a few words in this place regard-
ing the encouragement of planting. The most serious
obstacle to the growth of the planting industry in
Maryland is the absence of protection for planted oys-
ters. They are exposed to the depredations of both
tongmen and dredgers. If the private planting grounds
could be protected from the dredgers, most of the
difficulty would be removed, for the tongmen can be
reached by the local authorities, who will have no
difficulty in keeping them under control as soon as
public sentiment is in favor of so doing.

The restraint of the dredgers within lawful bounds
is a more difficult matter, and if dredging on the public
beds is to be permitted at all, I do not see how planted
oysters can be protected in any way, except by the
formation of a public sentiment in favor of private
cultivation. The difficulty is so great that many
thoughtful persons believe that dredging should be
prohibited, but after much careful examination of the
subject I am not convinced of the propriety of this
measure. If the natural beds are to be retained by the
State, and licenses to gather oysters upon them are to
be issued by the State, the dredge is the proper instru-
ment to use for the purpose, and the prohibition of
dredging would be a step backward.

Any bed which can be reached by tongmen may be

I40 THE OYSTER.

ruined by unrestricted tonging just as surely as by
dredging, and the statement that the small oysters are
destroyed by the dredge is not supported by my own
observation, while the claim of the dredgers that the
area of the natural beds has been enlarged by dredg-
ing is strictly true. The natural beds have been over-
taxed, and they are in great danger of total ruin, but
no particular set of oystermen are to blame for this.
Most of the oysters have been taken by dredges, be-
cause the dredge is the most efficient instrument for
the purpose, but the exhaustion of our beds is the
result of our bad system and the absence of all effort to
increase our supply by artificial culture. It is not
due to any particular way of catching oysters.

The prohibition of dredging would result in great
hardship to a very great body of our citizens, and if
oystering upon the public beds is permitted at all, I do
not believe that any legislative interference with the
methods which are to be employed would be wise. It
is to the interest of the public that the oysters shall be
taken as economically as possible, and the most effec-
tive implement for the purpose is the best one. The
only way in which public beds can be preserved from
ruin is by the restriction of the crop from each bed to
the amount which it is found, by periodical examina-
tion by an expert, to be capable of yielding without
injury, but the most effective way of gathering this
crop is the best way.

If after examination any natural bed is found to be
so much exhausted that it is no longer fit to yield a

THE OYSTER.

141

supply of marketable oysters, it should be closed com-
pletely to all fishermen, or else thrown open to
all licensed fishermen for a short time in the
summer, to furnish seed oysters for planting ; and the
oyster planters must look for protection in their in-
dustry to the growth of a sentiment of respect for pri-
vate property in oysters, like the sentiment in favor of
private agriculture on land. As soon as the community
demands the enforcement of the laws, and juries con-
vict and punish depredators as if they had trespassed on
private land above water, all the difficulties will disap-
pear, and I do not believe that there is any other
remedy.

The question to be considered then is this: How
can the people of the State be brought to perceive that
private enterprise in oyster culture is to their advan-
tage, and what can be done to develop a sentiment of
respect for private property in oysters? This is the
question which should occupy the best thought of those
statesmen who are sincerely devoted to the welfare of
the community, but it is not one which can be answered
by those politicians whose only interest in the sentiment
of the public centers in the use which they can make of
it for their own private ends.

As soon as the planter has become assured that he
will be permitted to enjoy the fruits of his industry,
the demand for bottoms to be used as planting grounds
will arise naturally, and it should be met by more
adequate legislative provisions than our present five-
acre law. Riparian owners should receive from the

I42 THE OYSTER.

State the right to plant oysters upon their own front-
age, without any restrictions, unless this contains nat-
ural beds, and these should be surveyed and definitely
described and set apart by the State. The holders of
land for planting under the five-acre law should also be
given a more secure and permanent tenure. At pres-
ent they pay nothing for the right, and as the Legisla-
ture may at any time repeal the law, they have no
secure possession.

There would be a much greater incentive to the in-
vestment of labor and capital in oyster-planting if the
planting grounds were made as much like real estate
as possible. The present law permits the sale of plant-
ing grounds, but no person can hold more than five
acres. This limitation has no advantages, and the
owner of ground under this law should be allowed to
sell as freely as he can sell land above water, and a
person who already holds five acres should be per-
mitted to buy or inherit any other grounds which have
been lawfully leased from the State.

In some States where grounds are held for private
planting, they are taxed, like real estate, and the pro-
priety of this measure is unquestionable, for the holder
of a valuable franchise should surely pay for the enjoy-
ment of his advantage. In Maryland, however, this is
a minor consideration, and the fostering of a prosper-
ous planting industry is vastly more important to all
our citizens than an immediate revenue to the public
treasury.

CHAPTER V.

A TALK ABOUT OYSTERS.

An intelligent and successful farmer, visiting an
oyster-packer in Baltimore, said : " I know nothing of
oysters except what I have heard, but I wish to know
more, and I should like to ask you a few questions.
Since I have been here I have seen in the newspapers
most glowing statements regarding the advantages of
Maryland for producing oysters, yet I am constantly
being told that all branches of the oyster industry are
depressed and in a most discouraging condition. The
last two or three winters have been very mild and, I
should suppose, very favorable for work upon the beds ;
yet I hear that few of the oystermen earned enough
to pay expenses last year, and they all say that this
winter matters have been very much worse. Your
friends in the packing business tell me that the oysters
are deteriorating in quality, and that they are growing
so scarce that some of the packers have moved away
from Baltimore. You say that people in Australia and
New Zealand, as well as in Europe and in all parts of
our own country, who formerly ordered great quanti-
ties of Maryland oysters, no longer patronize you.
You complain that, while your business is falling

144

THE OYSTER.

off, you have more and more difficulty each year in
filling your orders, and I can see for myself that your
oysters are not as fine and substantial as they used to
be. You tell me that you buy Virginia and North
Carolina oysters, although your own beds are right here
at home. Now I should like to know whether the
waters of Maryland are not as fit for growing oysters
as those of other States ? "

" Certainly they are," answered the packer. " We
all know that our waters are capable of producing
the finest oysters in the world in immeasurable abund-
ance. Like all citizens of Maryland, I am proud of this
great natural resource, and I regard our oyster grounds
as by far the most valuable land in our State."

" What is the trouble ? Is the demand too great
to be supplied from your own waters?"

" That is a difficult question to answer in a word.
For some time past the demand has exceeded the sup-
ply from the natural beds, which formerly gave us all
the oysters we needed; and as the eating-houses and
the private consumers in the city take all the best, I am
forced to send my customers oysters too young to be
palatable and nutritious. But the demand from all
sources has never reached anything like the amount
which our oyster-beds might easily be made to yield."

" I cannot make your two statements agree. The
sale and consumption of immature oysters seem to me
like mowing down young wheat to make hay. Why
is nothing done to increase the supply ? I am told that
in Delaware and New Jersey, in Rhode Island and in

THE OYSTER. 145

other States which have no great natural advantages,
such as you claim for Maryland, the value of the natural
supply has been very much increased by placing the
young ' seed ' oysters on bottoms where they grow
and improve until they are ready for the market.
In my experience as a market gardener I have found
that while onions a year old can be sold, it is much
more profitable to plant them as ' seed ' a second year,
and to give them another season's growth before send-
ing them to market. Instead of packing and selling
these small oysters, why do you not treat them as I
treat my ' seed ' onions ? Are there no lands in your
State suitable for oyster-planting?"

" You need only to look at a map of Maryland for
an answer to that question. We have nearly three
hundred miles of coast-line, all of it broken up into
creeks and inlets and sounds and bays. All these are
well adapted for oyster-planting, and might easily be
made much more so. Besides this we have thousands
of acres of low, marshy land, of no value at present.
At a slight expense this might be converted into sys-
tems of artificial oyster-ponds, where oysters could be
stored and held for a favorable markt, and where
they would grow and increase in value, like your seed
onions."

" This is most surprising. How is it that these
natural advantages are not seized upon and developed ?
Do not your people know the importance and profit of
oyster-planting ? "

" Certainly they do. Oyster-planting has been car-

146 THE OYSTER.

ried on in a small way for years, and there are many
men in our State who understand the business thor-
oughly. Besides, we have a remarkable illustration of
its value only a few miles beyond our border. At
Hampton Roads, in the lower part of the bay, the
planting business has recently been pushed with great
energy and enthusiasm. It is conducted on such a
large scale that a big steamboat is now loaded with
very fine oysters every day, from grounds which six
years ago did not supply enough to meet the local de-
mand."

" I am told that in Connecticut it has been found
possible to grow oysters from the eggs, in the way
that I grow wheat and corn; and to establish new
oyster-beds in deep water by covering the bottom
with oyster shells, to catch the floating embryos. Is
there no place in the bay where this can be done?"

" Assuredly there is. No place in the world is bet-
ter suited for oyster- farming. We have hundreds
of thousands of acres which are most valuable for this
purpose, and experiments have shown that there is no
part of the bay where new beds might not ultimately
be established by shelling the bottom, or by the use of
other spat-collectors."

" Why don't you do it ? How can you complain of
the scarcity of oysters when you have such an oppor-
tunity for oyster- farming? Is not the business profita-
ble?"

" You may judge of this for yourself when I tell you
that, in good places, a crop of five or six thousand

THE OYSTER. 147

bushels a year might be harvested from each acre, with
very little labor or outlay. No other branch of oyster
culture gives as much profit upon the investment of
capital and labor as deep-water oyster- farming."

" Does no one in Maryland understand the busi-
ness?"

" Oh yes ! Many of our packers do business in
Connecticut, and they have seen for themselves how
oyster-farming is carried on. They sell to the Con-
necticut farmers the shells which they scatter over
their land to collect the spat, and there are many citi-
zens of Maryland who know all about the business,
and even some who have attempted to put the Con-
necticut methods into practice in our own waters."

" Were these attempts unsuccessful ? Are the oys-
ters exposed here to dangers which do not exist in
Long Island Sound? I am told that in Connecticut
oysters in shallow water are often killed by ice, and
that the deep-water farms are open and exposed to
violent storms which, in the winter, often drive the
loose sand and mud over the oysters and bury and
destroy them. I hear, too, that the farmers suffer from
the ravages of starfish. They tell me that these ani-
mals often come up in great armies, on to the beds,
from outside, and that they destroy whole farms, leav-
ing behind them only the empty shells. Do these
accidents and enemies threaten the farming industry
in Maryland?"

" Not at all," answered the packer. " We are so for-
tunate as to have none of these causes of failure. While

148 THE OYSTER.

the water of our bay is perfectly adapted for oysters,
it is too fresh for starfish. They are sometimes found
in the lower part, near the ocean, but they are never
numerous enough to do much damage. Our climate
is too mild for the ice to do much harm, and the bay is
so well sheltered and landlocked that there are few
places where oysters are exposed to much danger from
storms. Most of our bottoms are so well protected
that the hardest winds cause very little movement."

" You say oyster- farming has been tried in Mary-
land. Was it successful?"

" That depends upon what you mean by success.
I can tell you of one farmer who, on about seventy
acres of bottom in Virginia, close to the Maryland
line, raised a crop of more than three hundred thous-
and bushels of fine oysters."

" He must be making a great fortune. How does it
happen that his example is not followed?"

" He reared his oysters, but he did not harvest them.
They were taken by the dredgers."

" Do you mean that they were stolen ?"

" Oh no. That is not the word to use. While he
was getting ready to gather his crop, the dredgers, who
had paid our State licenses to take oysters, got ahead
of him and captured them."

" Were the robbers discovered and punished ? "

" They were not robbers, and they were not pun-
ished. The owner of the oysters, who knew many of
them personally, remonstrated with them, but he could
not persuade them to go away."

THE OYSTER.

149

" What do you mean ? I do not understand the
state of affairs which you describe."

" Why, you see, our people have always regarded
the oyster-beds as the property of the whole State.
They are natural wealth which has not been produced
by man, and no one person has any more right to
them than another. They belong to all the citizens of
the State in common. We all inherit a share of them
as part of our birthright as Marylanders. Our people
are therefore opposed to any system which would lead
to monopoly and would give to a few the exclusive
enjoyment of the natural advantages which belong to
all."

" That seems wise and just, but most of your citi-
zens have other occupations and do not wish to engage
in oystering. How do they dispose of their common
rights?"

" We have a system of licensing, and any citizen
who wishes to gather oysters on our common property
pays to the State treasury a fee for the privilege of
doing so, and in this way all the people of the State
get the benefit of our natural wealth."

" I see. All your people are enriched by the sums
paid by a few dredgers for the monopoly of the com-
mon rights of the citizens, for this must be very great,
to judge by all you say of the value of your waters."

" No ; that is hardly true, I am sorry to say. The
profits are not so great as you suppose. In fact there
are no profits at all. The dredgers themselves are not
prosperous, and they do not like to pay this tax out

1 50 THE OYSTER.

of their hard earnings for the use of what they regard
as their own. Many of them would evade it if they
could, so the State is forced to maintain a navy to pre-
vent unlicensed dredging, and this costs more than the
total sum received for licenses."

" How is this deficiency made up — by the taxpayers
of the State?"

" Yes."

" I see. But does it not seem to you that this means
that the people of Maryland pay taxes for the privi-
lege of giving up their natural rights for the benefit of
a monopoly ? "

" Yes, I suppose it does ; but then we have the satis-
faction of knowing that we have benefited a large
class of our people, and have afforded employment
for many worthy citizens of our State."

" That is true ; but I learn from the papers that
foreign emigrants are met by the agents of the dredg-
ing captains, when they land at the Wharves in New
York, and that they are then engaged for service on
the Maryland oyster-boats. How can this happen if
the right to dredge upon the public beds is so highly
prized by your people?"

" A dredger's life is very hard. The boats are
small, and when they are loaded with wet, cold, muddy
oysters there is not much room left for the crew. The
work is done in the most stormy months of the year.
The dredgers are exposed to all the hardships and
dangers of a sailor's life, and to some which are pecu-
liar to oystermen. The heavy dredges are hauled by

THE OYSTER. 151

hand while the boat is under way. If they become
foul while they are being hauled in, all the weight
of the boat is thrown on to the windlass, and the
laborers, benumbed by the icy waters and unable to
move quickly, are often struck by the crank. Fatal
accidents from this cause are not uncommon. Of late
years the business has not been profitable. The boats
do not pay expenses, and the owners cannot offer
tempting wages. Maryland men, who know all the
hardships of a dredger's life, are not anxious to ship
as hands on a dredging boat, so the captains are forced
to recruit their crews among men who are not so well
posted."

"Can nothing be done to improve the dredger's
life? Why do they not dredge in the summer and
keep the oysters in planting grounds until there is a
market for them ? "

" The law does not permit dredging in the summer."

" Why do they not use larger vessels, and haul the
dredge by steam ? "

"As the amount of the license fee depends on the
size of the boat, it is for the owner's interest to use a
small vessel and pack it as full of oysters as possible.
The use of steamboats is not allowed, and the law re-
quires that the dredge shall be hauled by hand."

"How does it happen that with all your natural
advantages the work is so unprofitable ? "

" Our people have always been taught that our
natural beds are inexhaustible, so nothing has ever
been done to determine just how many oysters they

152 THE OYSTER.

could furnish each year without injury, and the result
is that they have been overworked until they are so
nearly exhausted that they no longer furnish a living
for the oystermen."

" I think," said the farmer, " that I begin to under-
stand the situation. It seems something like this.
As the beds belong to the community, private oyster
culture has not been permitted, since it would be a
monopoly. Yet the common property of the citizens
of the State has been given up to one class of citizens
in order that they might have profitable employment.
They have not managed their trust wisely, and have
brought it so near the verge of ruin that it is no longer
attractive to Marylanders, and they have called in the
cheaper labor of foreigners. To give these foreign
laborers employment the people of the State have not
only given up their rights, but have also paid taxes for
the support of the navy. This state of things cannot
last. What do you propose to do about it ? "

CHAPTER VI.

THE REMEDY.

Looked at as a question in natural history, the oys-
ter problem is very simple. The demand has outgrown
the natural supply, but it is easy to increase the supply
indefinitely by oyster culture, and this is all that is
needed.

As a practical question it is anything but simple.
It demands the best thoughts of all who are interested
in the welfare of our people. The practical applica-
tion of the remedy is proper work for statesmen of the
greatest ability and widest experience, rather than for
a naturalist who knows little or nothing of complicated
social questions.

The interests at stake are so important and vast that
they are worthy the best efforts of the best intellects
in our community, and any statesman who wishes to
devote himself to the unselfish, disinterested service of
the people will find in the complications of the oys-
ter problem an ample field for the exercise of all his
powers.

So many divergent and conflicting interests are
involved, and so many side issues are to be con-
sidered, that hasty, ill-advised action is sure to do
12

154 THE OYSTER.

more harm than good ; yet we have permitted matters
to run on so long without attention, that little time now
remains for deliberation or experiment.

It is with reluctance that I venture to speak at all on
the practical question of the reconstruction of our oys-
ter policy. I feel that I have done my part by show-
ing the capacity of the oyster for cultivation ; by
calling attention to the unexampled opportunities for
oyster-culture afforded by our waters, and by de-
scribing the methods which should be used to improve
these opportunities and to develop our resources. So
far I have dealt with facts, not opinions; and as facts
have permanent value, I hope that what I have written
will help to a clearer understanding of the needs of
our oyster industry, and that it will thus lead in time
to the adoption of wise measures for its protection, and
for promoting its growth and development.

Here I feel that my work should end, and that the
practical details should be left to those who have had
experience in public affairs ; and if I venture to discuss
details, I do so with the full knowledge that I am out-
side my proper province ; that I am no longer dealing
with facts, but with opinions which must meet with
criticism and discussion. The reflections of any one
who has thought seriously upon the oyster problem
are worthy of attention, for the true solution can only
be reached through the examination of all sides of the
question, and I have therefore decided to devote the
concluding chapters of this book to the expression of

THE OYSTER. 155

my own opinion of the way in which a new oyster
policy should be introduced.

Every one agrees that, whatever may be the remedy,
our method of managing the oyster industry so far has
been a failure. It has had a thorough trial, extending
through many years, and here are some of the results :
It has yielded on the average some ten million bushels
of oysters annually from grounds which are capable
of yielding five hundred million bushels each year.
It has led to the ruin of some of our finest beds, and
to the very great injury of all of them, while other
States have greatly increased the value of their beds
at the same time that they have enlarged and extended
the fisheries instead of restricting them.

It has given a precarious employment for a few
months in each year to about fifty thousand oyster-
men, while our grounds should give profitable employ-
ment, the year round, to five hundred thousand.

It has paid to the oystermen about two million
dollars a year, although our grounds should pay their
cultivators more than sixty million dollars a year.
Our six hundred thousand acres of oyster-ground
have paid to the State treasury about $50,000 a year,
which it has cost the State about $52,000 to collect;
and it has paid about $10,000 a year to the School
Fund, while our revenue would be more than $6,000,-
ooo if it were no greater per acre than the revenue from
the oyster-grounds of Rhode Island.

In other States, money invested in the oyster busi-
ness has paid an annual interest of more than 200 per

.156 THE OYSTER.

cent, while our oysters have never paid to either pack-
ers or vessel-owners more than 100 per cent, and of
late years they have paid nothing at all.

The interests of our people demand a complete
change in our oyster policy, as rapid and radical as it
can be without inflicting avoidable injury or unneces-
sary hardship upon any one who is now engaged in
the business; for however advantageous to the public
in general a change may be, the hardship of a few
should overbalance benefit to many, and we should
hesitate to demand any great sweeping change if it is
possible to devise any plan to open the way for im-
proved methods without infringing the rights of those
who are now engaged in the business. If proper
measures had been taken years ago it might have
been possible to have preserved our natural beds from
complete destruction, without restricting the fishing,
while a new system was being gradually introduced.

We have delayed action too long, however, and the
oyster business has been overtaken by disaster. There
is no escape, under any system, from a few years of
scarcity and depression, and all persons who are en-
gaged in any branch of the business must suffer more
or less. It is the duty of the people of the State to
see to it that our resources are developed and made as
profitable and productive as possible, but while it is
quite true that our beds might easily be made to sup-
port many more persons than have ever gained a
living from them in the past, we are bound to see to it
that the welfare of those persons who are now depend-

THE OYSTER.

157

ent upon them be not unnecessarily obstructed while
we are preparing the way for a better system.

The question of State revenue from the public beds
is of general interest, but we must not attach undue
importance to it, nor to any plan for public improve-
ments in other parts of the State by this revenue. For
several years past it has amounted to nothing, and un-
der our present system it will never be worth consider-
ing. As this is the case, the question of revenue for
the next few years should not enter into the discussion
.of our policy regarding the public beds. If any plan
for restoring and protecting them without expense
to the people of the State can be put into practice, that
is all we should expect.

We often hear that, as their value in the past has
not been the result of human industry, the oyster-
bottoms are a natural source of wealth which belongs
to the people of the whole State. This is unquestion-
ably true, but it may be well to inquire more minutely
into the exact nature and significance of this ownership,
for common rights bring with them common duties and
obligations.

Our first duty is to protect those citizens who are
most immediately and directly dependent on the oys-
ter, and, among them, those who fish the public beds
to get oysters as food for themselves and their families
have the first claim.

Of the 10,500,000 bushels of oysters which were
gathered in 1880 in our waters, 8,670,000, or more than
four-fifths of the whole, were consumed outside the

158 THE OYSTER.

State, and those who hold that the people of our tide-
water counties, or the people of Maryland, have a
natural right to this supply of food, may truthfully
affirm that if the sale of four-fifths of our oysters to
people outside our State were prohibited, there would,
even now, be an abundance for our own people on our
natural beds. Under any intelligent system of manage-
ment our natural beds would supply all the oysters we
need for food, and would still leave a great surplus for
commercial purposes, and we do not need to kill the
oyster business in order to get our own supply.

It must therefore be clear to every one that our
natural right to oysters for food does not justify us in
destroying a business which gives profitable employ-
ment to a large class of citizens. All civilized com-
munities recognize the advantage of selling their pro-
ducts in the best market, and it is not necessary to
state that the destruction of our commercial business
in oysters would inflict great injury, not on a few
capitalists alone, but on thousands of fishermen,
shuckers and canmakers, and our people have as much
natural right to make an honest living by selling
oysters to outsiders as they have to use them as food
for themselves and their families.

If our right to oysters for our own food were the
only one, the emergency could be met by legislation
to prohibit dredging and wholesale fishing, and to
drive the oyster business out of our State ; but we can
hardly conceive a greater misfortune to our people
than this. Still, if it were the only way to protect our

THE OYSTER. 159

oysters, and to preserve for the people of our tide-
water counties and for their children the supply of
cheap food which nature has given them, I should be
among the first to recommend this course.

Fortunately this is not the only remedy, and it is
possible to increase our supply so that the tide-water
people shall have all they want without destroying
the oyster business.

Our next duty is to protect the interests of the citi-
zens who support themselves by work upon the public
beds — the tongmen and dredgers who fish for oysters
in order to make their living by supplying the market.
As their business is an honest and useful one, they
have a natural right to pursue it, and it is the duty of
our people to see that this right is preserved and pro-
tected. It is equally clear, however, that they can
claim no right to deprive the tide-water people of food
by plundering private supplies of oysters, or by de-
stroying the natural beds. Every one knows that
private planting grounds have been robbed without
mercy by some of our fishermen, and even the men
who are most prejudiced by their own interests are no
longer able to deny the well-known fact that our public
beds have been brought to the verge of ruin by the
men who fish them to supply the market.

If fishing cannot be carried on upon the natural beds
without this result, the interest of our whole people
demands its prohibition. The citizens of Maryland
do not desire to deprive any one of the right to earn
his living, but our own interest requires that oystering

160 THE OYSTER.

upon the public beds shall be prohibited unless the
oystermen can convince us that they can be intrusted
with this right, without placing our common property
or the property of any citizen in peril The question
which we should ask them, which they are bound in
justice to ask themselves, is whether they are able to
give this assurance to the people of the State. They
cannot satisfy the community by calling for more laws
to keep them within bounds, or by asking for an armed
police force to prevent them from destroying their own
interests.

They must satisfy the people that they themselves
have enough public spirit to organize themselves for
their own government and regulation, and that they
have enough self-restraint and forethought and intelli-
gent self-interest to provide for the protection and im-
provement of the property which is intrusted to them.
If they can give the community this assurance, all the
people of the State will be on their side and will aid
them by all means in their power. The question of
immediate revenue to the State will not be considered
for a moment, as compared with their prosperity.

The tongmen and dredgers must acknowledge, how-
ever, that as the home consumer of oysters has no
right to oppose the commercial business, it is equally
clear that the public fishermen have no right to oppose
the development of our resources by private oyster
culture, unless it destroys their own livelihood.

So long as they draw on the natural supply without
the devotion of any part of their labor or earnings to

THE OYSTER. 161

its increase by artificial means, they can claim no right
to anything more than the natural beds ; nor can they
claim any right to gain a living from these beds at the
expense of posterity, or by any means which tend to
ruin the property. It is also clear that they have no
rights which conflict with the wider right of our people
to increase our prosperity by rearing oysters.

In discussing the measures which should be adopted
for the restoration and development of our oyster
business, the interests of four classes should be kept
in view : the tongmen who resort to the beds for food ;
the dredgers and tongmen who make a living by
gathering oysters for sale from our natural beds ; the
persons who wish to engage in oyster culture, either
by planting or by the various methods of oyster-farm-
ing; and the dealers, packers, shuckers, canmakers
and others who are supported by the oyster business.

Fortunately we need not ask which of these inter-
ests is to give way. Our waters are prolific enough
for all, and it is the right as well as the duty of our
people to see to it that our natural inheritance in the
bay be fully developed and used to the best advantage
for the good of all.

The protection of the people who now depend upon
the natural beds for a living must always be kept in
view, but our people should awaken to a sense that
interest in the matter is not confined to the men who
are engaged in the oyster business.

To ourselves and to our posterity we owe it that our
resources shall be fully developed, for our oyster-

1 62 THE OYSTER.

beds are our greatest source of wealth, and upon them,
more than upon our commerce, our manufactures, or
our farming land, the future wealth and prosperity
and population of our State depend.

Every one of us appreciates that it is for his interest
to get his little private supply of oysters for home use
as cheaply as possible, but scarcely any one, except
the oysterman, realizes that this is the least of his in-
terests in the matter. If our population were increased
fifty-fold, the oysters needed for home consumption
would even then be only a small part of the supply
which our waters can be made to furnish; and every
one who is interested in Maryland, all business men
who will be benefited by an increase in wealth and
population, all farmers who pay taxes to the State, and
all persons who own property here, should awaken to
the fact that our greatest source of wealth is almost
absolutely undeveloped.

The wealth which is within the reach of our people
and their descendants from the oyster-grounds of the
State is great, almost beyond expression, and it is not
too much to affirm that the money value of the grounds
under the water is equal to that of the dry land.

I have attempted to form a rough approximation to
the area which is at present occupied by oysters in
Maryland, and while, in the absence of exact surveys,
the result cannot be regarded as strictly accurate, the
conclusions which are given in the following table are
certainly not excessive.

THE OYSTER. 163

TABLE No. 4. — AREAS OF OYSTER-BEDS APPROXIMATELY
ASCERTAINED. 1883.

Square Yards.

Fishing Bay Beds 25,600,000

Were Point 1,800,000

Shark Pin Point 1,850,000

Nanticoke Point 3,400.000

Clump Point 400,000

Horsey's Bar Beds 200,000

Tyler Beds 700,000

Drumming Shoal 2,400,000

Cow and Calf 300,000

Bloodsworth Island (East Bed) 4,000,000

Cedar Beds 400,000

Mud Beds 1,800,000

Turtle Egg Island 1,650,000

Chain Shoal 1,200,000

Muscle Hole Bed 3,000,000

Piney Island Bar 7,000,000

Manokin River Bed 6,200,000

Big Annemessex 3,000,000

Harris' Beds 3,400,000

Terrapin Sand Beds 1,400,000

Paul's Bed 800,000

Woman's Marsh 7,000,000

Bed of Janes' Island 1,800,000

Great Rock 8,500,000

St. Mary's County Bay Shore 48,787,200

Calvert County Bay Shore 57,076,800

James River to Islands to Boundary Line 42,240,000

Anne Arundel County Bay Shore 88,281,600

Kent County Bay Shore 21,608,400

Talbot County Bay Shore 50,372,800

Queen Anne's County Bay Shore 48,787,200

Susquehanna River Oyster-Beds 14,700,000

Sassafras River Oyster-Beds 3,300,000

Back River Oyster-Beds 2,200,000

Back River Oyster-Beds 1,200,000

Gunpowder River Oyster-Beds 3,800,000

Bush River Oyster-Beds 1,300,000

Hawk Cove Oyster-Beds 960,000

Patapsco River Oyster-Beds (Old Road River to Sellers'

Point) 3,800,000

Chester River and Creeks Oyster-Beds 21,400,000

Bodkin Creek Oyster-Beds 5,000,000

Magothy River Oyster-Beds 8,900,000

Severn River Oyster-Beds 3,500,000

South River Oyster-Beds 6,000,000

Eastern Bay and Creeks Oyster-Beds 19,400,000

Choptank River to Cambridge Oyster-Beds 13,300,000

Little Choptank River Oyster-Beds 7,100,000

Patuxent River to Benedict Oyster-Beds 17,300,000

Total 578,224,000

Five hundred and seventy-eight million square yards
are about one hundred and ninety-three square miles,
or one hundred and twenty-three thousand five hun-
dred and twenty acres.

1 64 THE OYSTER.

As Winslow found by actual survey that there are
103 square miles of natural oyster-beds in Tangier
Sound alone in 1879, this estimate of 193 square miles
for our whole territory is certainly not excessive, and
it will be noticed that the Potomac River is not in-
cluded in this estimate.

Only a very small part of the bottom which is proper
for oyster- farming is now occupied by natural beds,
and it is safe to estimate the total area of valuable
oyster-ground in our State at one thousand square
miles, or six hundred and forty thousand acres.

Much of 'this ground could be made to yield to its
cultivators an annual profit of $1000 per acre, and the
profit on the whole, under a thorough system of culti-
vation, would not be less than $100 per acre. It is not
too much to affirm that when the whole of this area
shall have been developed, the future citizens of our
State will be able to draw an annual income of over
sixty million dollars from our waters. At present,
however, their value is very much below this estima-
tion, and under the present system of management it
is rapidly disappearing altogether. The oyster crop
has never been very much more than 10,000,000
bushels, and its value to the fishermen has never, in
all probability, exceeded $2,000,000. It is not easy to
ascertain its precise value with great accuracy, but
$2,000,000 annually is a safe estimate, and the actual
annual value of the oyster-beds, under a system which
is rapidly leading to their complete destruction, is thus

THE OYSTER. 165

seen to be less than three per cent of their possible
value.

An abstract statement in figures is always open to
distrust, and in order to guard against any impression
that the value stated above for our oyster-grounds is
imaginary, we wish to call attention here to results
which have been actually realized.

In 1888, Mr. Fred. A. Gunby, formerly a resident
of Crisfield, Maryland, obtained from the State of Vir-
ginia a right to cultivate oysters on about sixty-eight
acres of bottom in Accomac County, Virginia. The
tract lay in Tangier Sound, near the Maryland line,
and opposite that part of Smith's Island which is in
Virginia, lying just south of Horse Hammock. He
planted that year 28,000 bushels of oyster shells, at a
cost of $1200. Since that time he has employed a
watchman to keep off intruders, at a cost of about
$3000. In April, 1890, it was estimated that there
were 30,000 bushels of oysters on his beds. The
shells were found full of young oysters, which were
growing rapidly. In December, 1890, it was calculated
that there were 350,000 bushels of oysters on the
ground, worth at least thirty or forty cents a bushel in
the market.

He was not permitted to gather the harvest which
he had sown, but his experience shows the rich return
which would be yielded by this sort of oyster-farming
if private rights could be respected; and it rests with
the people of Maryland to decide whether our re-
sources shall be developed. Until we determine to

166 THE OYSTER.

avail ourselves of our natural advantages and to enjoy
the rich harvest which lies within our reach, nothing
can be accomplished.

There is no fear that the market will ever be over-
stocked with an article of food so cheap and dainty
and nutritious as the oyster; and as improvements
in the method of packing and transporting oysters are
introduced, the demand for oysters to supply the rap-
idly increasing population of our country will fully tax
all the resources of our waters. This great business
can be secured just as soon as we are prepared to-
demand opportunities to develop our resources.

Since all efforts to engage in oyster culture in our
State at present, even on the smallest scale, are frus-
trated by the claim that they are growing upon natural
beds, the first step in dealing with the matter must be
an actual, careful survey of the waters of the State, for
the purpose of designating, first, the natural beds, or
those areas over which the oysters are now so abund-
ant as to furnish steady production, and employment
for the men engaged in gathering oysters for the mar-
ket; and, secondly, those areas which are now under
cultivation as planting grounds ; and, thirdly, the area
which now produces no oysters for the market, but
where oyster culture can be carried on.

After this is provided for, the next step is to decide
what shall be done for the encouragement of each
of the chief subdivisions of the oyster industry.

It will be most convenient to discuss, first, the
measures which should be adopted to promote the in-

THE OYSTER. 167

terest of the tongmen and dredgers who now earn
their living by fishing the public beds to supply the
market, for every one appreciates that the destruction
of their means of employment would be a great mis-
fortune to all the people of the State.

After much thought upon the matter and careful
examination of all the opinions which have been ex-
pressed, I am able to perceive only one way to protect
and develop this branch of the oyster industry, and I
am sorry to say that I am not at all sure that even this
plan is practicable.

It is the co-operative organization of the oystermen
themselves for the purpose of improving the public
beds.

If they were to form an association for this purpose,
and were to organize it in such a way as to satisfy the
people of the State that the desired end would be
attained, they ought to be aided and encouraged to
make this experiment.

The people of the State should, however, require
ample assurance that all industrious, law-abiding oys-
termen who are citizens of Maryland shall have a
chance to join the association and to share its advan-
tages ; that the number of oysters taken from the pub-
lic beds each year shall be restricted to the amount
which they can yield without injury; that a proper
proportion of the proceeds of the sale of these oysters
shall be spent in the improvement of the beds; that
the equitable distribution of the balance among the
members of the association shall be provided for, and

1 68 THE OYSTER.

that all the influence of the association shall be exerted
to enforce its rules and to secure respect for law and for
private property.

If the people of Maryland can have a reasonable
assurance that all these ends will be secured by the
association, I believe that it will be wise for the State
to give up for the present all hope of immediate rev-
enue from the public beds, and to intrust them for a
term of years to this association, for the use and profit
of its members.

If my opinions carry any weight, I wish to impress
upon the people of the State the fact that the pros-
perity of our citizens is very much more important
than all the money which we have ever received from
dredging and tonging licenses, and I also wish to con-
vince the oystermen that they must depend upon their
own efforts rather than upon the State government.

If I tell the oystermen that it is useless for them to
look to the Legislature for the improvement and de-
velopment of the public beds, I only tell them what
they already know by long experience.

It has been proved, over and over again, that our
public domain cannot be protected without the aid
of the oystermen; but if they would co-operate for
the enlightened administration of their own busi-
ness, they would need no new restrictive laws. They
do not even need to send men to the Legislature to
look after their interests, nor do they need to fee law-
years to make out a case for them. The enlightened
sympathy of our people is worth more to them than

THE OYSTER. 169

any number of men in the General Assembly, or than
all the advice of the best lawyers in the State. For
support they must rely upon public sentiment, and for
success they must trust to their own efforts. If our
public beds are to be saved from ruin, it must be by
the efforts of the oystermen themselves, by organiza-
tion and co-operation for the purpose. I do not see
any other way to bring it about, and I hope that the
plan which I have proposed will be considered by the
oystermen.

While there are some reckless, short-sighted men in
the business, most of the captains and vessel-owners
are men who have the respect and confidence of their
neighbors, and the intelligence and personal influence
which are needed to direct and control public senti-
ment.

I ask them whether it is not worth while to consider
whether a plan for the organization of a co-operative
oyster company cannot be drawn up and put into good
shape. If they can accomplish this, I am sure that they
could present it to the Legislature, with an endorse-
ment by all the people of the State, so enthusiastic and
unanimous that it would command the support of every
one who is interested in their welfare, and that it would
meet prompt recognition by the Legislature, even if
there were not a single member who depended on the
votes of the oystermen.

The complicated details of the organization; the
qualifications for membership; the mode of enforcing
the laws of the association ; the way in which rent for
13

170 THE OYSTER.

the use of vessels and apparatus is to be assessed and
collected; the sums which are to be paid by the asso-
ciation for the experience and business standing of
captains and other officers ; the way in which fish-
ing is to be kept within the capacity of the beds ; the
means to be adopted for restoring and improving the
beds; the adjustment of the conflicting interests of
different localities: all these and many other matters
of detail will require close attention, self-sacrifice and
careful thought, but I do not believe that the difficul-
ties will be found insuperable if an earnest effort is
made to work out a plan of co-operative organization.

The people of the State would rejoice to see such a
plan developed and put into successful operation, and
no obstacles would be thrown in the way of the oyster-
men by outsiders. The only difficulty is the one which
comes from human nature.

The native American is too ambitious, too fond of
competition, and too desirous of full scope for his own
individual energy and intelligence and business sharp-
ness, to take kindly to a co-operative organization ;
but the only way to afford a field for these selfish quali-
ties is private oyster-culture, and if our natural beds
are to be retained as public ground they must be man-
aged on a co-operative system.

No one can say whether such a system would suc-
ceed or not, but it is well worth trying for a term of
years. If at the end of this period the result were
satisfactory, all the people of the State would be proud

THE OYSTER. 171

of our oystermen, and it could then be renewed for
another term, or forever, as seemed best.

If the organization should break down or fail
through internal dissension or personal ambition or
conflict of interests, no great harm would be done, for
the system of private culture could then be tried.

Some of the oystermen will assert that they have no
money to invest in the improvement of the beds, and
that the State ought to help them out ; that what little
capital they had has been lost in the last few years,
and that, in order to be successful, the fishery would
require so much restriction for the next two or three
years that there would be no profits, and only a very
scanty living. Unfortunately, this is true, but it will
be true under any system, and at present things are
growing worse with no prospect of improvement,
while under intelligent co-operation they would im-
prove rapidly after the first two years. The oyster-
men complain that they have no capital to bridge over
this gap, but they will have to get over it somehow, in
any case. At present they cannot borrow, for they
have no prospect of better times ahead.

If, however, the community were convinced that the
organization could be relied upon to develop and im-
prove the property intrusted to it, there would be no
difficulty in raising the necessary capital, and the
amount which is now paid by the State for licenses
would go a long way towards the improvement of the
beds.

The only plan for the management of the oyster-

1 72 THE OYSTER.

grounds as public property, except oyster culture by a
co-operative organization of oystermen, is cultivation
by the State, and our past history shows conclusively
that the State can do nothing unless it be supported
by the intelligent co-operation of the oystermen. If
they are able to co-operate effectively for the enforce-
ment of the laws, they are able to co-operate for the
improvement and protection of their own business ;
they can manage it for themselves very much better
than the State can do, and they do not need State aid.
Every oysterman will agree with me that if the money
which is now paid for licenses is to be be spent in the
improvement of the public beds, the oystermen them-
selves would be more able, under a co-operative sys-
tem, than any salaried officers who might be appointed
by the State, to use it to advantage.

State protection has so far proved a total failure,
and I do not see any way to save the public beds, as
common fishing grounds, except the one which I have
proposed. If this is not practicable, the sooner the
natural beds are thrown open to private cultivators, the
better it will be for all concerned.

The artificial culture of salt-water food-fishes is
proper work for the State, for these fishes are migra-
tory; they cannot be confined or restricted to one
spot, and there is no way to secure to individuals the
enjoyment of the fruits of their own industry in this
field of work. The case of the oyster is quite different.
The animal is as fixed and sedentary as a potato, and
its cultivation is as simple as any other branch of agri-

THE OYSTER.

173

culture. State aid is unnecessary, and experience has
shown that it is totally inefficient, and our public beds
must either be cultivated by the oystermen as an organ-
ized body, for the good of all, or they must cease to
be public ground, and must be cultivated by indi-
viduals for their own profit.

It now remains to consider the measures which
should be adopted for the protection and development
of the other branches of the oyster industry, but this
is comparatively simple.

First, as regards the tide-water consumers of oys-
ters. So far as they are fishermen upon the public
beds, they should become members of an oystermen's
association for the preservation, restoration and devel-
opment of the public domain.

So far as they are planters upon private grounds,
their greatest need is protection in their rights and
encouragement to invest their time and money in the
extension of the planting business. As soon as the
first condition of success, respect for private property,
has been secured, the planting industry will grow
rapidly, and I have already devoted considerable space
(pp. 125-140) to the discussion of improved methods.

Success in planting requires security in the tenure
of bottoms to be used for the purpose, and I believe
that the following provisions for the growth of the
industry should be made by the State :

Any owner of land the lines of which extend under
the navigable waters of the State, should have the ex-
clusive right to use the bottom within the lines for

I74 THE OYSTER.

oyster culture ; the owners of any land bordering on
any landlocked water should have the exclusive right
to use it for oyster culture above the line where it first
ceases to be one hundred yards wide at low water;
any one who shall construct an artificial pond for the
culture of oysters on any land of which he is the
owner shall own the pond and its contents; any
owner of land in which there may be any landlocked
water which might be converted into a pond for the
cultivation of oysters without injury to navigation,
should be permitted to construct dams or gates in order
to convert it into an oyster-pond, and should have the
exclusive right to cultivate oysters upon its bottom.
In addition to these provisions, any riparian owner
should be permitted to purchase from the State, at a
nominal price, the right to cultivate oysters upon the
bottoms of his own water-front, to a specified dis-
tance— say one hundred yards — beyond low-water
mark ; and any citizen of Maryland should be permitted
to purchase from the State, at a nominal price, the
right to cultivate oysters upon an area not to exceed
fifteen acres, on any bottom not already appropriated
or set apart as public ground.

In all these cases the right to cultivate oysters
should be made as much like a title to real estate as
possible, and the State treasury should look for its in-
come from future taxation of the property rather than
from the price of the franchise. After the planting in-
dustry has become well established it will be able to
bear its proper share of the burden of taxation, but an

THE OYSTER. 175

infant industry should not be hampered or taxed for
the sake of public revenue.

These provisions, if sustained by a sound and liberal
public sentiment, would put it in the power of any
citizen to engage in oyster-planting, and thus to pro-
vide for the support of his family.

The encouragement of oyster-farming upon the bot-
toms in the open waters of the bay now remains to be
considered.

After the natural beds have been surveyed and
mapped and set apart as public grounds, provision
should be made, ultimately, for the encouragement of
private oyster culture upon all bottoms, outside those
limits, not otherwise appropriated.

As nearly all of this book has been devoted to the
subject of oyster- farming, it is not necessary to add
anything more to show its great importance. Its en-
couragement is a matter of vital interest to every citi-
zen of Maryland, for, wisely fostered, it will be an ines-
timable contribution to the prosperity of all our peo-
ple; it will provide permanent, stable employment for
our oystermen; it will increase the packing business,
it will benefit all oyster dealers, all shuckers and can-
makers, all the business men of the community ; it will
provide cheap and abundant food for our people, and
it will contribute to the revenues of the State ; but from
its very nature it cannot be successfully carried on
upon a small scale, and steps must be taken to attract
capitalists to this field of industry.

Many thoughtful persons believe that all private

176 THE OYSTER.

ownership of land is objectionable and injurious to the
best interests of society, and they are for this reason
opposed to private oyster culture. I believe, however,
that it will be found, on careful examination, that most
of their arguments and objections to private owner-
ship lose their weight when applied to oyster culture.

Private lands above water are often used in such a
way as to exclude other uses more beneficial to society ;
but this cannot happen with oyster franchises, for the
State has no power to grant any absolute title to the
bottoms under navigable water, or to grant any right
to use them for other purposes than those specified in
the lease. It has power to convey to private citizens
the right to cultivate and harvest oysters, but it can do
no more, for all the citizens of Maryland have the com-
mon right to catch fishes in our waters, and all citizens
of the United States must always retain and enjoy the
right of free access to all such lands for purposes of
navigation. It is clear that a lease of the bottoms for
oyster culture could not give any exclusive personal
right to use them for other purposes, nor could it
deprive our citizens of their common right to use our
waters for other purposes.

It is also urged that the private ownership of land is
unjust, inasmuch as it enables individuals to appro-
priate to themselves the unearned increase of value;
but as the whole bay is a natural highway, where no
public improvements will ever be needed, as no towns
will ever grow up on the water, and as transportation
by water is so cheap that the distance of the market

THE OYSTER. 177

counts for nothing, and as the bottoms can never be
used for any other purpose than oyster culture, the
only way in which the value of the oyster bottoms
can increase is by the extension of the market, and if
this is brought about by the energy of the oyster
farmers it will not be just to assert that they have not
earned it. The value of our bottoms, for rearing
oysters, is as great now as it will ever be, and while
the selling price of land will rise as the industry ex-
tends, the increased price will not be due to increased
value, but to more general recognition of its value.
Interest in the subject will awaken and spread, after
the success of the first experiments, and as appre-
ciation of the value of the ground becomes more gen-
eral, and the demand increases, the price must rise,
although the actual value of the land for the pro-
duction of food will not be any greater than it is now.

The only danger to be guarded against is that some
of the land may fall into the hands of speculators, who,
instead of cultivating it and adding to our resources,
will keep it idle and unproductive until they can sell
their unimproved rights at a profit, on account of the
increased price of neighboring improved lands.

This difficulty seems very formidable on paper, but
it can never exist on any extensive scale, for it would
in that case defeat its own end, and it is clear that it is
from its own nature transitory, and that it will disap-
pear as soon as oyster culture becomes general and
all the land comes into profitable use.

I believe that ultimately it will be found to be the

178 THE OYSTER.

wisest policy for the State to make the franchises for
oyster culture perpetual, but since most of the advan-
tages of private enterprise can be secured by leases
for a term of years, it may perhaps be wise to try this
plan for one or two terms, and to leave the question of
absolute sale for future consideration.

CHAPTER VII.

THE PROTECTION OF OUR NATURAL BEDS; AND THE
CAUSE OF THE DECLINE OF OUR OYSTER INDUSTRY.

Every one knows that the condition of the oyster in-
dustry gives good reason for great anxiety. In times
of hardship it is natural to look for some one to bear
the blame, and for a long time our daily papers have
been filled with letters from packers, dealers, brokers,
dredgers, tongmen and planters, all throwing the re-
sponsibility on some one else. The important question
is, what can be done to improve matters? Every one
knows that there has been ignorance and error and
mismanagement in many quarters, but no good can be
done by blaming others.

It is necessary, however, to study the causes of the
present state of things, not as an excuse, but as a basis
for the intelligent discussion of remedies ; for a little
knowledge of the subject will show that no relief can
be expected from most of the protection measures
which are advocated in the newspaper correspondence.

If wise measures had been adopted years ago we
might have passed gradually to a better state of things
without exposing to hardship any one who is engaged
in any branch of the industry, but our people have

i8o THE OYSTER.

always been so firmly convinced that our supply was
inexhaustible, that all warnings have been disregarded,
and we have never taken the first step towards reform
— a thorough examination of the exact condition of
our resources.

The world will scarcely believe that in a State whose
largest and most characteristic industry depends on
the oyster, the oyster-beds have never been thoroughly
examined or even surveyed and mapped, but this is
the case. For many years I have urged the import-
ance of thorough periodical examinations of the beds
as a basis for the intelligent regulation of the fishery,
but this work has never been undertaken by the State.
If it had been, the result would long ago have proved
to every one with absolute conclusiveness, before the
damage was past remedy, what has been perfectly
obvious for many years to all who have studied the
subject, that our beds are being exhausted and ruined
by our present system.

In 1882 I was appointed a commissioner to examine
the condition of the oyster-beds of the State and to
report the same to the next General Assembly, but no
means for the prosecution of a survey of the beds were
provided. This would have required a large force of
trained assistants, with expensive appliances, and even
then it would have been the work of years, and I was
forced to content myself with a mere superficial ex-
amination. In this I was most effectually aided by
the intelligence and enthusiasm of my fellow-commis-
sioner, the late Capt. Jas. I. Waddell, and the Governor

THE OYSTER. 181

of the State furnished from his " emergency fund " a
small sum for the purchase of a few pieces of simple
apparatus. The Trustees of the Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity allowed me to devote to the work two years,
during which they paid me for my service to them,
and they also furnished aid in other ways, so that the
results of our examination of the beds were, in great
part, a gift from the University to the State.

With such scanty means as we could command we
organized a plan of work, and soon accumulated
enough data to prove that our oyster policy is destruc-
tive and sure to result, ultimately, in ruin to the indus-
try. Our first step was to try to ascertain the condi-
tion of the beds by personal examination, but we found
that the absence of any exact data as to their condition
in past years rendered any inference from our observa-
tions very difficult.

In a small part of the bay exact data were on record.
The beds of Tangier Sound were very carefully sur-
veyed in 1878 and 1879 by Lieutenant Francis Wins-
low, U. S. N., acting under the direction of the
Superintendent of the United States Coast Survey.
His published report is one of the most important
documents ever printed on the subject, and while
it covers only a small part of the waters of Mary-
land, it gives a very exhaustive account of all the
oyster-beds of the region examined, with their areas,
location, boundaries, position, general character, the
number of oysters to the square yard, the ratios be-
tween oysters of different ages, etc., so that we were

182 THE OYSTER.

able to ascertain without difficulty the changes which
these beds have undergone in the three years which
had passed since this work was finished, but we were
unable to obtain exact information of this kind regard-
ing the great mass of the beds of this State. Lieuten-
ant Winslow was employed for nearly two years in the
survey of Tangier Sound, and a similar survey of all
the oyster area of our State would have required four
or five years more, and as we had no means at our
disposal for exact surveying, even if there had been
time to undertake it, we adopted a more rapid method
of gaining a crude idea of the condition of the beds.

It is obvious that a bed where there are many oysters
to the yard is in a more fertile condition than one
where the oysters are few. It is also clear that a bed
in which the living oysters are few as compared with
the dead empty shells, is less vigorous than one where
the dead shells are less numerous.

It is clear, too, that a bed upon which many young
oysters are growing up to replace the old ones is
more prolific than one where the young oysters are
few. During the first year of its life the oyster is
much more exposed to accidents and enemies than it
is after it reaches maturity, and it is therefore plain
that if the average life of the oyster upon our worked
beds is three years, any bed upon which the oysters
one year old are not much more than one-third of the
whole number must soon be destroyed.

We therefore attempted to ascertain these three
points for all the larger beds in our waters: first, the

THE OYSTER. 183

number of oysters to the square yard; second, the
ratio of living oysters to empty shells, and, third, the
ratio of mature to immature oysters. To ascertain the
number of oysters to the square yard, a dredge with a
mouth a yard wide was dragged over the bottom, for
a measured distance, at a definite rate of speed, and its
contents were then brought aboard and counted. This
method does not give perfect accuracy, for the dredge
does not, as a rule, take all the oysters ; the number
varying with the weight of the dredge, the speed of
the boat, the depth of the water, the length of the line,
the character of the bottom, etc. Still examinations of
this sort, made upon different beds by the same dredge
used by the same persons in the same boat and managed
in the same manner, give results which are comparable
with each other, although it is more difficult to compare
the results of two or more examiners.

The oysters captured in this way were carefully
separated from the empty shells and other refuse, and
both oysters and debris were measured and counted.
The oysters of various ages were then separated into
four sets: large oysters, or those less than 200 to the
bushel ; medium oysters, or those between 200 and
300 to the bushel ; small oysters, or those over 400
to the bushel and over an inch long; and young
growth, or those less than an inch long.

During this work we examined sixty-one beds and
made three hundred and forty hauls of the dredge;
and the results of this examination are here given in
full, together with an analysis, and a comparison of

1 84 THE OYSTER.

our results with those which had previously been ob-
tained by Winslow and others.

In 1878 and 1879 Lieutenant Winslow found that
there were about .419 oysters to the square yard in
Tangier Sound, or one oyster to every two and three
hundred and eightyjsix thousandths square yards.
As the beds of Tangier Sound showed, at that time,
indications of exhaustion, this number, .419 to the
square yard, is less than it would be upon uninjured
beds, and it is probable that the beds outside the
Sound would have given a much greater number at that
time. If we now find that the average is below this
number, we can safely assume that the difference is
entirely due to the injury which the beds have sus-
tained since 1879, and we may thus form some esti-
mate of the time which will be required for their com-
plete destruction. We made use of the method which
was employed by Winslow in his examination. A
dredge, a yard wide, was dragged slowly over the
bed until we ascertained that we were upon the oyster
grounds. The dredge was then emptied, lowered on
to the bed, and as soon as it began to take hold of the
bottom it was timed, and the rate of the steamer was
also ascertained by the ground-log. The area covered
was not the same in all cases. Where oysters were
abundant the steamer was stopped and time was taken
as soon as the dredge was full. In other cases five
minutes were allowed to pass and the steamer was then
stopped. The dredge was then hauled in, and the
oysters were counted and measured.

THE OYSTER. 185

This method does not give the actual number of
oysters upon the bottom, for the dredge does not
always sweep clean, and it is necessary to pass over
the ground several times to thoroughly exhaust it,
but results obtained in this way give the relative con-
dition of the bed with great accuracy.

Whenever the contents of the dredge showed that we
were off the bed, or near its limits, the haul was not
counted, and the results therefore show the number of
oysters upon the beds; not the number per yard over
the whole bay.

Fifty-nine beds were examined in this way, and the
results are given in the accompanying table, which
shows that forty-four of these beds are below Wins-
low's average, and fifteen above it. Upon one of these
beds, in Hooper's Strait, we found 8.2 oysters to the
square yard, and we here obtained 4000 oysters in six
hauls. These oysters were all very small, averaging
four hundred to the bushel, and we probably struck
an area where there had been a good catch of spat a
year or two before, but where there were no large
oysters. At any rate, this condition is exceptional,
and I have therefore omitted the dredgings in Hooper's
Strait in the average for the bay. Leaving this out,
the average for the other fifty-eight beds gives .235
oysters to the square yard, or one oyster to each
4^3ff yards, while three years before there was one
oyster to each 2ffifc square yards.

Startling as this result is, it is by no means the
whole truth. We must remember that in 1879 Tan-
14

1 86 THE OYSTER.

gier Sound itself was more exhausted than the bay,
so there were undoubtedly more than .419 oysters to
the square yard at this date. Then, too, we have ex-
amined many beds where dredging is not permitted,
and other beds where the oysters are unmarketable,
and the high results which we obtained from these
beds are included in the average. If these were
omitted our total would show nearly 50 per cent of
exhaustion to the most valuable beds of the State.
The accompanying table, which is compiled entirely
from the facts which we observed by personal exami-
nation of all the beds, must speak for itself. It is the
most trustworthy evidence which we have been able
to obtain, and it certainly justifies the widespread be-
lief that the oyster property of the State is in imminent
danger of complete destruction unless radical changes
in the methods of managing the beds are made at once.
Great importance should not, however, be given to
the exact quantitative result which we obtained, as it
is based on only one examination. If the beds could
have been examined every year or two in the same
way, as we recommended at the time, the results of
successive examinations could have been compared
with considerable accuracy, and definite data could
thus have been obtained, but it is difficult to estimate
the exact value of a single examination.

EXPLANATION OF TABLE NO. I.

The first column gives the name of the bed ; the
second the number of dredgings which were made

TABLE No. 1. — SHOWING THE NUMBER OF OYSTERS TO A SQUARE
YARD IN THE WATERS OF MARYLAND IN 1882 AND 1883.

NAME or BED.

OYSTERS
TO

SQUARE
lARD.

ft*?

S-sg

*lll

'ercent'ge of
gain or loes
since last ex-

mination, or
since Itfl9.

Gain Loes.

Bodkin

Sandy Point.

Hackett's Point.*

Swan Point

South Side Cheater River ,

Cornfield Creek ,

Thomas' Point

Rd~und Point Reef

Thomas' Bar

Tally'sPoint ..

Scull Hall

Chink Point «

Choptank Fiver-
Cook's Point.

Benoni'p Point. ,
Chlora's Point . ,

Todd's Point

Castlehaven

Horn Point

Total in Choptank .

First Kent Point . ..

South Kent Point

Eastern Bay

Cox's Creek

Tilghman'* Point to Wade's Point

South River

Shackel's Point

Brewer's Point

'urdy's Point

'hree Sisters

'oplar Island

(harp's Island

Jttle Choptank No. 1

lagged Point

HlTs Point

Jigger Head

lolfand Point

luro Point

)addyDare

.Ittle Corn Point

log Island

Jawk'sNest ~....

Broom's Island

Middle Ground

Kent Island

lent Island

otomac River No. 1

Cornfield Point to Pitt's Point . . .

St. Mary's River

St. George's Island

Piney Point to Blackstone's Island

Total.1n Potomac

Piney Island Bar

Fishing Bay Dredging Ground....

Fishing Bay Tonglng Ground

Hooper's Strait

James' Point

NoPointBar

Great Rock

Turtle Egg Rock

1788

1247

2200
2498
1087

8777

'II

783
298
298
6562

i

€

22C
18S
518
293
7818
2864
1494
2200
2200
H

4088
1178

1466
2200
5200
220C
1467

894
1164
3158
2838

189

11
IS

1

40

150
757

69
119

24
575
186
225
190
200
340
165
1676
727

88

5185

2787

7833
J9627
97.6
488
163
488
879
818
5708

2281

1025
439
84

4000
181
427

1555

.81

151

8.728

552

118

1.05

518]

.805

.057
.0858
.871
.089
.135

522

•H

.115
.01
.02
.51

.117

.041

.1089
.66
.56

.012
.085
.048
.084
,0645
.OC57
.019
.21
.071
.27
.89

.058

.1

.08

.4176

.078

.1497

-.114
-529
-.185
-.862
-.8732
-.048
-.38
-.284

-.197
-JW

-.059

+ .091
-.302

-.3856
-.363
-.878
+ .761
-.869
+ .841
+ .444
+ .67
+ 541
+ .141
+ .54
-.885

-.8209
-.407
-.884

-!88J
-.8545
-.41SJ
— .4
-509
-.848
-.149
-.0*9
-.188
+ .281
-.8425
-.361
-.31*
-.33*
-.0014
-.326
-.2608
+ .63
+ .48:

+ .098
+ 7.781

116
11
28

1857

ie

24

62

95

8-01
79

Total.

8261 120958 |S2405

Total number of beds examined

Total number of dredgings

Total number of square yards examined »

Total number of Oysters found

Numbe? of Oysters to the square yard

Number of Oysters to the square yard, exclusive of Hooper s Strait.

59
. 826

.120.958

. 82,405

.267

1 88 THE OYSTER.

upon it by us; the third the number of square yards
dredged ; the fourth the number of oysters taken ; the
fifth the number found by us in 1882 ; the sixth the
number found by us in 1883 ; the seventh the amount
of deviation from Winslow's average for 1879, °f •4I9
oysters to the square yard, and the eighth the per-
centage of gain or loss since the last examination.
Thus the first line shows that eight dredgings were
made upon the Bodkin; that 1732 square yards were
examined; that 894 oysters were obtanied; that the
bed had lost ^ oysters to each square yard since
1882, and that it has lost 62 per cent of its value in
that time.

RATIO BETWEEN LIVING OYSTERS AND DEAD SHELLS.

When the oysters are culled upon the beds where
they are caught, the dead shells are thrown back, and
the oysters upon a bed which has been overworked
will therefore form a smaller part of the total contents
of the dredge than they will upon a more prosperous
and valuable bed. In a dredge which has been hauled
over an unexhausted bed, the living oysters are many
and the shells are few, while the dredge brings up
from an exhausted bed a great mass of rubbish which
must be lifted and handled in order to obtain a few
oysters.

The ratio between the living oysters and the dead
shells therefore furnishes us with a means for deciding
whether a bed is deteriorating or not. This method
of estimating the condition of the beds is a very rough

THE OYSTER. 189

one, and the evidence is not of much value when only
a single bed is examined. The dead shells are swept
into the channel in some places, and covered up by
sand or mud in others, so that the dredge may come
up filled with shells when it happens to strike a bed
where they have been swept together, and in another
case, where most of the shells are buried, it may con-
tain few. If the dredge is heavy and is dragged with a
long line, it may dig into the mud and become filled
with old shells, where another dredge, or the same
dredge dragged in a different way, may contain few or
none. The contents of the dredge are determined by
so many accidents that single observations of the ratio
between shells and oysters are of little value, but the
case is different where a great number of dredgings is
made. In 1876 Mr. Otto Lugger visited most of our
beds, and measured the quantity of shells and of oysters
obtained from each. As he made a great number of
observations, his results give us a means of ascertaining
the average ratio in 1876. His results, obtained by the
examination of twenty beds, show that in 1876 the
dredge brought up 3T%% bushels of oysters for each
bushel of shells. In 1878 and 1879 Lieut. Winslow ex-
amined in the same way seventeen beds in Tangier
Sound, and found that only 1^% bushels of oysters
were obtained for each bushel of shells.

In November, 1882, we examined fourteen beds in
this way, and found that the average had fallen from
3^*5. in 1876 and IT9^ in 1879 to I ^bushels in 1882.
Thirty-two beds were examined in the same way in the

190

THE OYSTER.

summer of 1883, and nearly the same ratio was ob-
tained, there being if. bushels of living oysters for
each bushel of dead shells.

The results of this examination are given in full in
the following table.

TABLE No. 2. — To SHOW THE NUMBER OF BUSHELS OF OYSTERS
TO EACH BUSHEL OF DEAD SHELLS.

1876.
Logger.

1879.
Winslow.

1882.

1883.

Bodkin

1.22

1

8

14
14
S7

.46
3.
4.
2.
1.8
.89
3.
1.16
4.
1.57

!3
I:"

2.'
.66
.33
.33
.66
2.5

!i

.18

\

I

Sandy Point

Hackett's Point

Swan Point . . .

1.85

Chester River

Cornfield Creek

Thomas' Point

3.

Tally's-

Scull Hall

Chink Point

Cook's Point

Benoni's Point

Castlehaven

Horn Point

Eastern Bay

Kent Point

1.5

Tilghman'8 Point

Sooth River

Shackel's Point

Duvall's Bar

Brewer's Point

Purdy's Point

Three Sisters..*

Sharp's Island «

Holland Point

3.
4.
1.85
2.33

5

V

2
2

a

85

83
57
1
14
75

Plum Point

Little Cove Point ,

Hoe Island

Hawk's Nest

2.33
2.33
9

Piney Island

Fishing Bay

Hooper's Strait

5.6"
4.
5.6
5.6

Sharp's Island

NoPointBar

Great Pock

.41
1.02

Turtle Egg Rock

Great Fox Island

t,

i*

South Marsh Island

St Michael's

Bozman's Flats

...

....

....

Roaring Point

In 1876 Lugger found as the average for twenty teds 3.682 bushels of oysters for
each bushel or shells.

In 1879 Winslow found as the average from seventeen beds 1.962 bushels of
oysters for each bushel of shells.

In 1882 we found as the average for fourteen beds 1.31 bushels of oysters for each
bushel of shells.

In 18S3 we found as the average for thirty-one beds 1.4-10 bushels of oysters for
each bushel of shells.

THE OYSTER. I9!

This table shows that while it is necessary, in 1883,
to handle 161 bushels of oysters and shells to obtain
100 bushels of oysters, it was necessary to handle only
151 bushels in 1879 and only 127 bushels in 1876.

This evidence, in connection with that which has
been given in Table I, seems to prove that the whole
oyster area of our State is being exhausted.

THE RATIO BETWEEN LARGE AND SMALL OYSTERS.

Any bed is on the road to destruction if the number
of old oysters which are removed from it each year is
as great as the number of young ones which are grow-
ing up to take their places. Oysters, like other ani-
mals, are exposed to many accidents, and the number
which can be taken from a bed annually is equal to
the number which are growing up to take their places,
less the number which will be destroyed by the acci-
dents of nature.

An accurate count of the oysters of various ages
upon a bed, therefore, gives us a means of deciding
whether it is or is not in danger of exhaustion.

We have examined in this way the oysters upon
the beds which we have visited, and have divided
them into four classes. The first class includes large
oysters, or all oysters of which a bushel does not con-
tain more than 250 ; the second class includes medium
oysters, or those between 250 and 400 to the bushel ;
the third class includes the small oysters, those which
are large enough to be seen and counted without diffi-
culty, and more than 400 to the bushel ; and the fourth

192 THE OYSTER.

class, or " young," those which are less than one-half
inch long.

The accompanying table shows the number of oys-
ters of each class which we obtained upon the beds
which we visited, and the ratio between them.

Thus we found upon the Bodkin bar in November,
1882, no large oysters, 225 medium oysters, 355 small
ones, and no young, and there were at that time 100
small ones for each 67 of medium size.

In June, 1883, we found no large ones, and the
small ones which we had found in November had
grown to a medium size, and there were no small ones
growing up to take the places of these when removed
by the season's dredging. This result seems at first
sight to indicate that the fishing this season (1884)
will exhaust the Bodkin bed and put an end to work
there, but in truth the case is not quite so discouraging,
for our second examination was made before the end of
the spawning season, and an examination in the fall
might have given a different result.

In order to be trustworthy, an examination of this
kind should be made every year, in the same month,
and if the oysters of various sizes upon each bed could
be counted twice every year, in May or June, and in
September or October, the results would be very valua-
ble and would soon furnish a very exact means for
ascertaining the condition of the beds. This evidence
would be the more valuable, as it would soon enable
us to determine, a year or more in advance, how many
marketable oysters a bed could yield without injury.

TABLE No. 3. — To SHOW THE NUMBER AND RATIOS OF OYSTERS
OF VARIOUS SIZES.

Large, or less
than 250 to the
bushel.

M e d i n m, or
from 250 to 400
to the bushel.

Small, or more
than 400 to the
bush el, but
large enough
t6 count.

ol

28

c5
e"3

"° i

h*

Ratio of large
' to medium.

Rat) oof medi-
um to email. |

Bodkin, November, 1882

IS

60
lOf

•&

11

10
19"
1

9

49
21i

4
i?

<

4

80

o

0
0
23
0
0
0
0
0
0
C

'i
1

0
0
747
0
0
0
0
0
84
19)

22,
814
I7f
]«

*a
*s

7S
468
1
271
146
525
101
140
777
123
(
(
8
6
0

is:

H

840
165
0
802
175
124
208
198
900
143
0
78
0
87

'1

0

'§

808
0
0
0
839
0
IfiO
59
49
151
0
0
•505
0
407
700
227
46
0
70
213
164

85
70

10
5

8

48

40

|

151
(320
8*

201
(
|
(
0
210
0
0
0
0
0
28
0
0
0
0

1

0
0
158
569
872

*j

0

'!

n!

228
0

68fi
401
825
212
88
4,000
111
180
0

many
few.
few

few.

few

few.
many,
few'

i

I
few.
I
few
0
many

(
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
many,
many.

0
0
0
0
0
many,
many,
many,
many,
many.
0
0
0
0
many",
many.

few.

.29
•2*
.133

-1*

'.72

.088
.•009

'.65

.67
'.207

2".68
2.75

"i'i

".22

Bodkin, June, 1883

Sandy Point, June, 1883

Sandy Point, November, 1888

Hackett's Point, November, 1882. . .
Hactett's Point, June, 1883

Swan Point, November, 1882

Swan Point, June, 1888

Chester River, June, 1888
Cornfi eldCreek, June, 1883

Tfl omas 'roint. June, 1883

Tally's Point, dune, 1883

Eastern Bay, June, 1883
Eastern Bay, November, 1882
Tilghman's Point, June. 1883
Scull Hall, June, 1888 ..'

Chink Point, June, 1883

Cook's Point, June. 18SS

Benoni's Pfiint, June, 1883
Chlora's Point. June, 1883
Todd's Point, June, 1883...
Castlehaven, June, 1883
Horn Point, June, 1883. .
Choptank, June, 1883
South River, June, 1883

Shackel's Point, June, 1883
Duvall's Bar, June, 18£8
Brewer's Point, June, 1888

l'.24

I'M

1.19
.44

146

..t.

".88

Purdy's Point, June 1883

Round Point Reef, June. 1883
Saunders' Point, June, 1883
Poplar Island, November, 1882..
Poplar Island, June 1888

Three Sisters, November, 1882
Three Sisters, June 1883

Sharp's Island Rock, November, 1882
Sharp's Island Rock, July, 1883
Little Choptank, July, 1883
Ragged Point, July, 1883... . .
Hiirs Point, July, 1883 ,.
Nigger Head, July, 1883

Near Holland Point, July, 1888.. - .
Holland Point, July, 1Kb 3
Plum Point, July, 18S8

Daddy Dare, July, 1883

Steps, July, 1883

...

....

Little Low Point, July, 1883
Patuxent River, July, 1888

lawk's Nest, July, 1883

Broom 's I sland, July, 1888
'atnxent Middle Ground, July, 1883.
homas' Bar, July, 1883

Kent Island, November, 1882
Kent Island, July, 1888
Moody Point, July, 1888 , . ...
'oloniac No. 1, January, 18F8
Cornfield- Point, August, 1883
St. Mary's River, August, 1883
3t. George's Island, August, 1883 .
Piney Point, August, 1883
Great Rock, November, 1882 ^
Piney Island Bar, November, 1832... .
Ashing Bay, November, 1682.. . .
Fishing Bay, November, 1882
Hooper's Strait, November, 1882 . . -.
James' Point, November, 1882
fo Point Bar, November, 1882
hirtle Egg Rock. November, 1883.. .

1.12
.87
.91

'S.9

1.83

1.01
2.15
1.07
1.21

"89
1.16

.68

1.60

Total

4,717

15,673

11,848

194 THE OYSTER.

In the absence of any records of the numbers of
oysters of various sizes in previous years, our table is
of no particular value, but we give it in full, in order
to facilitate the work of comparison in the future.

The precise significance of this table cannot be under-
stood until similar examinations have been carried on
for a term of years, and at the same time in each year.

It will be observed, however, that it shows a total of
20,390 large and medium oysters to only 11,848 small
ones. Four thousand of these small oysters were
taken at one time in Hooper's Strait, in a " pocket "
which had escaped the dredgers, and this haul should
be omitted in order to show a typical average. If we
leave it out we shall have 20,390 large and medium
oysters to 7848 small ones, or only a little more than
one small one to three marketable ones. It is very
probable that if all our examinations had been made
in the fall, the number of small oysters would have
been found much greater, and they are above the
average on the beds which we examined in November.

Still the summary of the whole table shows that the
beds are losing their fecundity, and that the crop this
winter (183-1884) will be greater than it will be the
year after.

The reasons for the small number of young oysters
we believe to be, in part, the scarcity of mature oysters
to furnish spawn ; in part the wanton destruction of
great numbers of very young oysters through the vio-
lation of culling laws, and in part the absence of enough

THE OYSTER. 195

clean shells on the beds to furnish attachment for the
spat.

There are unlimited numbers of old, decayed and
dirty shells on all the beds, but on many of them we
found hardly a single shell proper for the attachment
of spat.

We regard the annual examination of the beds, in
the way we have employed, as a matter of very great
importance. In the absence of such observations it is
impossible to state with perfect certainty how many
oysters a bed may yield annually without injury. This
examination should be made every year, during the
same months, and it should be made under the superin-
tendence of the same person, in the same way, in order
that the results may admit of direct comparison. Pro-
vision should be made for the annual examination of
all the beds under the direct control of the State.
The proper time for this examination is the closed
season. An examination after the year's dredging
would show how many full-grown oysters remain and
how many the bed might safely yield during the next
season. If the examination were made late in the
summer it would also show how many young oysters
have become attached during the spawning season.

While our own work was not exhaustive enough
to give the information which is necessary for this pur-
pose, it was amply sufficient to show that in 1882 and
1883 the deterioration of our beds had made rapid
progress, and that our system of managing the beds
is a failure.

196 THE OYSTER.

The next step in our inquiry was to find the defects
in our system, and to point out the reason for its fail-
ure, and this task was found to be an easy one, for
the experience of other countries which have passed
through the same history gave a clear and simple ex-
planation.

THE CAUSE OF THE EXHAUSTION OF THE BEDS.

While the reason for the exhaustion of our beds is
perfectly clear and simple, the greatest ignorance upon
this point exists in the minds of our people.

Certain writers have attributed the destruction of
the oysters to disease, like the pious oystermen of
Wellfleet, on Cape Cod, who, after they had extermin-
ated their oysters by over-fishing, laid their loss upon
Providence, which had, they said, punished them for
their sins by inflicting a fatal disease upon the inno-
cent oysters.

Some of the explanations of the destruction of the
oysters come from persons who have enjoyed such
opportunities for observation and study of the subject
that broader views might fairly be expected from them.

Thus, to explain the disappearance of oysters from
the New England coast north of Cape Cod, a well-
known conchologist, Dr. Gould, says that he does not
believe there were ever any oysters there ; while a very
eminent naturalist, Prof. Verrill, holds that the climate
of New England has undergone a change within the
last century or two, and that it is now too cold for
oysters, although a few scattered oysters are found

THE OYSTER. 197

there still, and although they are still abundant at some
points on the much colder coast of New Brunswick,
and although we have the minute accounts which the
early settlers have given us of the gradual destruction
of their oysters as the population increased.

We can hardly be surprised that our people should
exhibit total ignorance of the true cause of the de-
struction, when we recollect that there is not a single
word in any of the laws of Maryland which indicates
that our legislators are aware that the supply of oysters
can be artificially increased, or that there is need for
any such increase.

The contrast between the views upon the oyster
question which are now prevalent among our people,
and those which come from a broad-minded considera-
tion of the question in all its relations, can be illus-
trated by an example. The uncivilized Indians are
able to supply all their wants from the natural re-
sources of their hunting-grounds, but as population
increases, food grows scarcer and hard to procure, and
it soon becomes evident that the natural supply is not
enough. The first impulse, in such an emergency,
is to restrict the demand, by driving away or starving
out the superfluous population; and if savage tribes
were able to enact and enforce laws, they would no
doubt try to preserve their game by laws restricting
the quantity to be killed, or by laws forbidding the use
of improved appliances for capturing it.

Civilized races have long recognized the fact that
the true remedy is not to limit the demand, but rather

198 THE OYSTER.

to increase the supply of food, by rearing domestic
sheep and cattle and poultry in the place of wild deer
and buffaloes and turkeys, and by cultivating the
ground instead of searching for the natural fruits and
seeds of the forests and swamps.

It is not in a spirit of harsh criticism, but in the
hope that our people may be awakened to their own
interest, that we point out the similarity between the
veiws of our people and their legislators and the
opinions of savage races. We live in a highly civil-
ized age, and if we fail to grasp its spirit we shall go
to the wall before the oyster cultivators of the North-
ern States, and those of Virginia and North Carolina,
just as surely as the Indians have been exterminated
by the whites. We cannot resist the progress of events,
but we can control it if we will be wise in time.

It is not essential that a patient should know the
nature and cause of his disease, but this knowledge is
of the greatest importance to his physician, and it is
of equal importance that the men who are called upon
to legislate for the preservation of our oysters should
clearly understand the true reason for their destruction.

I state, then, in capital letters, that our beds are in
danger,

BECAUSE THE DEMAND HAS OUTGROWN THE NATURAL
SUPPLY.

There are only two possible remedies. Either we
must diminish the demand by killing the packing in-

THE OYSTER. 199

dustry which has created it, or we must increase by
artificial means the natural supply of oysters.

Even if our natural beds could be restored and
placed as they were twenty years ago, this would only
delay for a few years their final exhaustion, for the de-
mand is now far beyond the natural productive powers
of our waters, and it is growing greater every day.

The daily papers often publish letters from oyster-
men who think that they can point out the true remedyf
and the proposed remedies are almost as numerous as
the authors, and nearly all the letters give statements
which, while they are perfectly true, are based upon
such narrow experience that they are of little or no
value as contributions to a broad, comprehensive view
of the problem.

The tongmen know that most of the oysters have
been taken away by the dredgers, and they therefore
advocate the prohibition or restriction of dredging.
Ignorant of the fact that in localities where no dredg-
ing has been allowed, the natural beds have been ex-
hausted by tongmen just as soon as a demand for the
oysters sprung up, they believe that the prohibition of
dredging is all that is needed to restore the beds. The
dredgers, on the other hand, attribute the injury to
the law which allows the tongmen to take oysters for
private use in the summer, forgetting that the beds of
Connecticut are rapidly increasing in value under a
law which allows not only tonging, but dredging as
well all through the year. The small dredgers and
scrapers hold that the larger vessels are destroying the

200 THE OYSTER.

oysters by the use of heavy dredges, although the
Connecticut farmers find it to their interest to use on
their own private beds far heavier dredges, which they
drag over the beds by steam.

Many of the oyster-packers, who carry on their busi-
ness only in the winter, believe that all the damage is
due to the oystermen who fish in March, April and
May, and men who have money invested in the oys-
ter business in Maryland believe that the exportation
of oysters in the shell, and especially oysters for plant-
ing in Northern waters, is the cause of the mischief.

All agree in throwing the blame on some one else,
and all believe that some form of the business in which
they are not interested is responsible for the present
state of things and should be prohibited; but as the
oyster navy is a convenient scapegoat, all parties unite
in throwing the blame upon the officers of the Fishery
Force.

While the views of the oystermen are in this state
of confusion, all students of the subject are agreed as
to the cause of the mischief. As Lieutenant Winslow
well said in 1883, not only must the fecundity of the
beds be preserved, but the market supply must also
be kept up to the present demand, if not actually in-
creased; and is a cessation of dredging likely to ac-
complish the latter end, when at present the vast fleet
of pungies and canoes are straining every rope and
windlass and openly violating every law of two power-
ful States in order to find oysters in the required num-
bers? The truth is that the Chesapeake beds are no

THE OYSTER. 2OI

longer equal to the demands made upon them. Some
policy must be adopted which will supplement the sup-
ply granted by nature, or else the supply will surely
fail.

No mere restriction of the fishing can possibly ac-
complish the desired end. It may prevent the extinc-
tion of the beds as they are now, though that is doubt-
ful. It certainly will not relieve in the least the pres-
ent condition of the market. What should be done is
to adopt a policy similar in essential features to that
of Connecticut. The fishery of that State is one of the
few instances of recuperation on record. I know of
many destroyed oyster fisheries and I know of a few
that have been rebuilt, and I find one cause common
to all failures and as common to all successes. In the
first instance, the fishery has been common property,
its preservation everybody's business — that is, nobody's
— and consequently it has not been preserved. In the
second instance, the fishery has been conducted and
owned by persons singly and together as private prop-
erty ; it has been this, that, or the other man's business
to see to its preservation ; that is, its preservation has
been everybody's business instead of nobody's and con-
sequently it has been preserved.

Maryland cannot escape the action of universal laws,
and the sooner those interested in the matter recognize
the fact that a man does best by his own, whether
it be a wheat or oyster farm, the sooner will a correct
conclusion be reached regarding the oyster question.

It seems as if there were little probability, even at
15

202 THE OYSTER.

the present day, of the necessary change in Maryland's
policy. Things of this kind, which so vitally interest
our whole community, rarely get better until they have
become decidedly worse. The current of public opinion
must be turned in the right direction by disaster, caused
by allowing ruinous systems to remain in force ; but it
is to be hoped that a point will soon be reached where
our people will become alive to the situation and apply
the remedy.

If, however, the present system must remain in force,
there are some suggestions which may be offered which,
though they could never restore our lost industry,
might save our natural beds from complete destruc-
tion.

One explanation which has been urged to account
for the destruction of our oyster-beds is the wanton or
unnecessary destruction of young oysters; Upon the
piles of shells which are thrown out from the packing-
houses great numbers of young shells can often be
found. They are, of course, dead, and as they are too
small to be of any use, their destruction is a clear loss
to our people. It is impossible to prevent this from
happening occasionally, as in many cases the little
oysters are so small and so firmly fastened to the old
one that they cannot be removed without destroying
them, and even if the oystermen could be compelled to
throw back on to the beds any large oyster which has
small ones fastened to it, there is reason to doubt
whether this would be advantageous, for one full-
grown oyster, like a bird in the hand, is more valuable

THE OYSTER.

203

than two small ones which may or may not grow up
to maturity. I believe, however, that in cases where
great numbers of young are fastened to the large ones,
the use or destruction of them at the packing-house
should be discouraged. This difficulty will disappear
with the growth of the planting industry, for small
oysters will then be valuable as seed, and they will pass
into the hands of the planters instead of going to the
packing-houses. The true remedy, therefore, is the en-
couragement of planting, and if our people would de-
velop this business immediately, all need for special
legislation would disappear.

The destruction of young oysters at the packing-
houses is trifling, however, compared with that which
results from violations of the culling laws. When a
dredge is brought up from an oyster-bed it usually
contains a few marketable oysters and great quantities
of empty shells, which are often covered with young
oysters. The law requires that these shells shall be
thrown back upon the beds where they are taken,
under a penalty of three years' imprisonment, or three
hundred dollars fine, or the forfeiture of the boat used,
but the enactment of this law has failed to remedy the
evil. It is and always must be very difficult to enforce
a culling law, and as the captain of a dredging boat
wishes to improve his time on the beds to the best
advantage, and to make the most of pleasant weather
while it lasts, it is, of course, to his interest to fill his
boat as quickly as possible, and all hands are there-
fore so fully employed in catching oysters that there

2O4

THE OYSTER.

is no time to cull them. Even when a captain is dis-
posed to cull on the beds, he may be compelled by
stormy weather, to run for harbor, and will then employ
his crew in culling the oysters while lying in harbor.
The shells are then dumped overboard in heaps around
the anchorage, and even if the bottom should by chance
be favorable for the growth of the oysters, they are
smothered and killed under the heaps of shells.

The only way in which this can be prevented is by
making it to the interest of the fisherman to save rather
than to destroy the small oysters, and this can be done
by the encouragement of planting. There is enough
suitable ground under our waters to rear to maturity
all the seed oysters which the natural beds now yield,
and the time is sure to come when it will not pay the
fisherman to destroy those which cannot be sold to
the packers, and it will not be necessary to legislate for
their protection.

The aim of the culling law is twofold: first, to pre-
serve the young oysters, and secondly, to compel the
return of the dead shells to the beds, that they may
serve for the attachment of spat.

The value of these shells for this purpose is not very
great, as they are usually decayed and slimy and cov-
ered with sponge, but it is undoubtedly true that they
are sufficiently valuable to justify the culling law.
The dry, clean shells which accumulate at the packing
houses during the winter are far more valuable, and if
these could be returned to the beds in the summer, a
great increase in fertility would certainly follow.

THE OYSTER. 205

The improvidence of the people of the United States
in dealing with their oysters, so long as they were
abundant, has been almost beyond belief. The early
settlers found at their doors a supply which they re-
garded as inexhaustible, and they not only used them
freely as food, but they also spread them upon their
fields as manure, and poured them, alive, into their
lime-kilns and iron furnaces. In the Northern States
the beds soon showed signs of exhaustion, and these
practices were prohibited by law.

As it has taken our people nearly two hundred years
to discover that we cannot afford to destroy oysters
in this way, we. can hardly expect them to perceive
that clean, empty shells are also so valuable that their
use for lime, road-making, etc., should be prohibited.

I called attention to the very great value of oyster
shells in 1879, m an appendix to the report of the
Fish Commission, and showed that a great increase
of fertility would follow the return of the shells to the
waters of our bay.

If this advice had been followed at the time it was
given, our oyster-beds would now be much more valu-
able, but no attention was paid to it.

The Commissioners of Shell Fisheries of the State
of Rhode Island, in their annual report for the year
1882, make the following statement upon this sub-
ject:

" The oyster shells which have for years back been
considered almost worthless, have, within a short time,
become valuable to the oyster fisheries. It is a well-

206 THE OYSTER.

known fact that large quantities of shells are purchased
here from the oyster business, and these shells, which
have until a short time been considered worthless, are
now selling for from eight to ten cents per bushel, to
be carried out of the State (mostly to New Haven) for
the purpose of planting them in deep water in Long
Island Sound, to catch the oyster spawn and for the
raising of oyster seed. These shells are taken up at
the expiration of two years, and, with the increase of
oysters adhering to them, are brought back to the
same parties selling the shells in the first instance, for
the purpose of planting in our waters, and the price
paid for them is from forty to fifty cents per bushel."

The statement which I made twelve years ago, that
this is a matter of great importance, has been passed
over in absolute silence and has attracted no attention.
It seems now as if it were almost time that the enter-
prise of practical Connecticut oystermen should have
taught our people a lesson which they would not learn
from a scientific student. Years ago I recommended
that laws be passed requiring the return of shells to
the beds. The simplest way in which this could be
done would be to adopt the Connecticut plan of pri-
vate farming, and we may be sure that just so soon as
the fruits of private enterprise are secured to the cul-
tivators, private interest will lead to the return of the
shells to the water, as it has already done in Connec-
ticut.

One of the causes to which the destruction of our
oyster-beds is often attributed is the exportation of

THE OYSTER. 207

small oysters into other States. I have tried to gather
information as to the extent to which this is practiced,
but it is difficult to obtain exact statistics.

In discussing this subject we must bear in mind the
fact that Northern fishermen or boats are not allowed
to catch oysters in our waters, and that the industry
contributes to our State treasury and gives employment
to our people; for all the oysters which are exported
for planting must be purchased from our licensed
fishermen. Any person who lawfully owns oysters
clearly has the right to dispose of them in the best
market, and nothing can be done directly to prevent our
oystermen from selling to Northern planters when it is
to their interest to do so.

So far as the exported oysters are mature and mar-
ketable for food, it is obviously to our interest to en-
courage the business, which is perfectly legitimate.

The only ground upon which the practice can be
objected to is, that it leads to the sale by our people of
oysters which would be much more valuable to them
if they could be kept in our own waters until they
reached maturity. Oysters which cost the Delaware
planters twenty-five cents per bushel are resold in a
few months for eighty cents per bushel, and many of
them are bought by Maryland packers. The policy
of allowing our impoverished beds to enrich the citi-
zens of another State is an unwise one, but it is proper
to point out the fact that there is no reason why our
own people should not themselves have this profit of
55 cents a bushel.

208 THE OYSTER.

It must be obvious to every one that the true remedy
is to encourage planting in our own waters. We have
vastly more land suitable for the purpose than the State
of Delaware, and as our own planters are on the
ground, they would have no canal fees or transpor-
tation to pay, and they could, if they choose, secure
all these oysters for their own use, and gain the profit
which now goes elsewhere. The development of the
Maryland planting industry is, therefore, the true
remedy for the evil. When we have, as we easily
might, more seed oysters than we can use, the exporta-
tion of seed will become a legitimate and profitable
branch of the industry well worthy of encouragement.

The favorite remedy for the difficulty, at least
among those fishermen who are not dredgers, is the
prohibition of dredging. Every one knows that our
beds have deteriorated because they have been exces-
sively fished, and every one knows, too, that most of
this fishing has been done by dredgers. It is there-
fore natural to conclude that since the dredgers have
done the damage, the prohibition of dredging will cure
the mischief, but this is by no means true. The great
demand for oysters, which has come from the growth
of the packing industry, has been supplied by dredg-
ers, because the dredge is more effective and economi-
cal than the oyster-tongs ; but if dredges had not been
invented, the demand would still have been supplied
by the much more expensive and laborious method of
tonging, and the prohibition of dredging now would
simply cause an increase in the number of tongmen.

THE OYSTER. 209

It would not, however, cause any increase in the
wages of tongmen or in the price of oysters, unless
the importation of oysters from States where dredging
is permitted were forbidden, and this would require
an amendment to one of the most important clauses
of the Constitution of the United States. The beds
in deep water would escape, but they would then be,
like many of the deep-water beds of Virginia, of no
use to any one except pirates, and all the beds which
could be reached by tongs would be as badly off as
ever.

In order to show that this is the case, and that the
excessive working of beds with tongs soon causes their
destruction, when dredges are not used, we must note
a number of cases where beds have been exterminated
with tongs alone.

In 1874 the officers of the United States Coast Sur-
vey found a number of fine beds of valuable oysters
near Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Many fine beds
were found in this region by the earlier settlers, but
they were destroyed so long ago that none of the
natives had any knowledge of oyster-fishing or any
instruments for taking the oysters ; but it happened
that an old oysterman from the Chesapeake Bay was
living near-by, and he sent to Providence for oyster-
tongs and began tonging upon the newly discovered
beds. His example was imitated so effectively that
in five years the beds were exhausted and ceased to
be productive.

Ingersoll tells us that from the earliest times the

2io THE OYSTER.

borders of the Quinepiac River, near New Haven,
Connecticut, have been the scene of oyster operations.
The earliest settlers found on its shores great mounds
of oyster shells, which showed that the Indians had
resorted to its beds, season after season, for an un-
known period. The first white fisherman found nat-
ural beds scattered over the bottom of the whole river,
as well as in favorable areas along the eastern shore
of the harbor. All of the beds were easy of access,
and the result was that the raking of oysters was soon
adopted as a business by many persons who lived near
the water, and a considerable retail peddling trade was
thus kept up throughout the neighborhood, in addition
to the home supply. Wagon loads of opened oysters
traveled in winter to the interior towns, even as far as
Albany, and thence westward by canal.

These beds continued to supply fine oysters for all
the inhabitants of the surrounding country for many
years, but they have long been worthless as a supply
of food, although they still yield small oysters, which
are used as " seed " for planting. The beds were ex-
hausted by tongs, and it is interesting to note that
nearly all of the oysters were removed in a single day
in each year. After the beds were closed by law until
November I, great crowds assembled on the banks of
the river, on the last night of October, and at the
striking of midnight by the town-clock, began an attack
which cleaned the beds of most of their marketable
oysters before the end of the day, and a few hours of

THE OYSTER. 2II

this fishing- resulted in the capture of all marketable
oysters.

Native oysters were abundant at Wellfleet, on Cape
Cod, at the time of the first white settlements, and for
more than a hundred years the town was famous for
its oysters, but they became extinct in 1775, through
excessive tonging, although the inhabitants attributed
their destruction not to their own rapacity, but to a
disease sent by Providence upon the oysters, as a
punishment for the sins of the fishermen, who were
more worthy of such an infliction than the helpless
oysters.

In all of these cases the exhaustion of the beds has
been brought about almost or entirely without the use
of dredges, although in a few cases dredges may have
been used to a slight extent.

The list might be greatly extended were it not for
the fact that upon all the more southerly beds dredges
as well as tongs have been used.

Enough instances have been given to show that the
prohibition of dredging will not save any bed which
can be reached with tongs, and as the dredge is much
more scientific, effective and economical apparatus than
the rude tongs which it has superceded, there is no
reason why its use should be prohibited.

In one way the use of dredges is a positive advan-
tage to the beds. On a natural bed which has never
been dredged, the oysters grow side by side in clus-
ters, so crowded together that they have no room to
grow. Most of them die when very young, and the

212 THE OYSTER.

others become long and thin. The dredge breaks up
and scatters these bunches, and gives the oysters room
to grow and to become valuable; and by scattering
the shells, dredging causes an increase in the area of
the natural bed.

It is asserted that the heavy dredges crush and kill
the young oysters, and drag them into the mud and
smother them, but the private farmers of Connecticut
find it to their advantage to drag over their farms, by
the aid of steam, dredges very much larger than any
which are used in Maryland. They use these heavy
dredges in the summer when the young oysters are
very small and fragile, as well as in the winter, yet
their farms are improved by this treatment.

It is undoubtedly true that little oysters are some-
times broken and killed by the dredge, but the de-
struction of oysters in this way is so slight as to have
no significance. I have paid especial attention to the
matter while dredging for oysters, and the number
broken or injured by the dredge is surprisingly small.
Young oysters fasten themselves flat upon the surface
of attachment, and they do not begin to grow up and
to become erect until they are large enough to crowd
each other, and by this time they are large enough to
withstand the dredge without injury.

After most careful examination of the subject I am
convinced that there is no objection to dredging which
does not apply with equal force to all other methods
of oystering, and the interest of the community de-

THE OYSTER.

213

mands the employment of improved methods and
cheap and effective labor-saving appliances.

What is needed is more oysters : not the prohibition
of effective methods of catching them.

No animal upon earth, large enough to be valuable
as human food, can long survive the attacks of an
enemy who brings against it the resources, the de-
structive weapons and the intelligence of civilized man.
Fortunately, the resources which render man the most
irresistible of enemies, also enable him to become a
producer as well as a destroyer ; and while the fear of
him and the dread of him is upon every beast of the
earth and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that
moveth upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the
sea, while they are all delivered into his hands and are
powerless to resist him, he alone, of all animals, is able
to make good his ravages, by agriculture and by
domestication, by the selection and improvement of
animals and plants, and by artificial propagation.

In the year 1880 the fisheries census, and special
investigations under the direction of the U. S. Fish
Commission, proved that there had been a most rapid
and alarming decline in the value of the shad fisheries
in the rivers and bays and sounds of our Atlantic
coast, and that there was every reason to fear that in
a few years the shad would cease to be of any value as
a food supply.

The adult shad are oceanic fishes, but each spring
they enter our inlets and bays and make their way

214 THE OYSTER.

up to the fresh-water streams where they deposit their
eggs.

The supply for the market is caught during this
spring migration, when the fishes enter our inland
waters heavy and fat after their winter feast upon the
abundant food which they find in the ocean. They
spend most of the year gathering up and converting
into the substance of their own bodies the minute
marine organisms which would otherwise be of no
value to man, and their instincts impel them to bring
back to our very doors this great addition to our food
supply; for their economic importance is very great,
and their extinction would be a national calamity, as,
without their aid, a great and fertile tract of ocean
would be beyond our control and valueless to man.

In 1880 the fishermen of the interior believed that
the fishermen in lower waters, nearer the ocean, were
to blame for the decline of the fisheries. They com-
plained of the erection of pounds and weirs along the
shores of the salt-water bays and sounds, where the
fishes were captured in great numbers far away from
their spawning grounds. They believed that legisla-
tion could save the fishery, and that if these obstruc-
tions were prohibited by law and removed, and all the
shad were permitted to reach fresh water before they
were captured, enough eggs would be deposited to keep
up the supply, but that the destruction of such numbers
in salt water must necessarily result in extermina-
tion.

This seemed to fresh-water fishermen to be good

THE OYSTER. 215

logic, but the salt-water fishermen took a different view
of the matter. They wanted more legislation them-
selves, but of a different sort, and claimed that what
was needed was protection for the shad upon the
spawning ground. They said that they themselves fur-
nished most of the shad for the market ; that without
them the cities could not be supplied, and that enough
shad escaped their nets and reached the fresh water
to supply all the eggs that were needed, if they could
be left to lay their eggs in peace.

In 1880 there seemed to be good sense in this view
also, and it was difficult for a disinterested outsider to
tell who was right. The only thing which seemed
clear was that the shad were growing scarce, and that,
if the Legislature did not do something to protect them,
they would soon be exterminated.

In 1888 more shad were caught in salt water than
were caught altogether in 1880, and yet the shad fish-
eries are now increasing in value from year to year,
and this change has been brought about, not by the
enactment of new laws to restrict the fishery, but by
the production of more fishes.

In 1880 the U. S. Fish Commission began, syste-
matically and upon a large scale, the work of collecting
the eggs from the bodies of the shad which were cap-
tured for the market in the nets of the fishermen.
These eggs were artificially fertilized and the young
were kept for a short time in hatching jars, and the
waste of eggs was thus prevented. This work has
been prosecuted steadily ever since, and the results, up

2l6 THE OYSTER.

to the end of the season of 1888, are given in the fol-
lowing table:

TOTAL NUMBER OF SHAD TAKEN EACH YEAR.

In Salt and

Percentage of in-

Brackish water.

In Rivera.

Total.

crease over 1880.

1885

3,267,497

1,906,434

5,172,931

25

per cent.

1886

3,098,768

2,485,000

5>584,368

34

u

1887

3,813,744

2,OX)I,66l

6,715405

62

tt

1888

5,010,101

2,650,373

7,660,474

85

M

The money value to the fishermen of the excess in
1888 over the total catch of 1880 was more than
$700,000. I have no record for 1889 or 1890, but
last year, 1890, the fisheries were more profitable than
they have been for many years, and our markets were
stocked with an abundance of fine shad, which were
sold at prices which ten years ago would not have been
thought possible. The percentage of increase in 1889
and 1890 has been much greater than it was in any of
the years given in the table, and this result is not due
to any change in the method of fishing. It is exclu-
sively due to the increase in the supply.

The conditions are now more unfavorable than ever
to natural reproduction, and it can be proved that if
no shad had been produced by man, while the other
factors had remained as they now are, the fisheries
would be completely ruined and abandoned.

The mature fishes are now excluded by dams and

THE OYSTER. 217

other obstructions from the most valuable spawning
grounds, and the area which is now available is re-
stricted to the lower reaches of the rivers, where there
is little proper food for the young, and where the bot-
toms are so continually and assiduously swept by drift
nets and seines that each fish is surely captured soon
after its arrival. The number of eggs which are
naturally deposited is now very small, for while the
spawning-grounds have increased from 1,600,000 to
2,600,000, the take in salt water has increased from
2,500,000 to 5,000,000, and the shores of our bays and
sounds are now so lined by fyke nets and pounds that
the number of shad which reach the spawning-grounds
at all is proportionately much less than it was in 1880,
and more shad are now taken each year in salt water,
where spawning is impossible, than were taken
altogether in 1880.

This fact, rightly considered, means that the shad is
now an artificial product like the crops of grain and
fruit which are harvested on our farms and orchards.

If more shad than the natural supply were taken in
1880 in all waters, and if still greater numbers are now
taken each year in deep water, before they reach the
spawning-ground, it follows that we are now entirely
dependent upon the artificial supply.

This short history will serve to show that we must
look to an increase in the supply of oysters as the only
remedy for the scarcity, and that we can hope for no
benefit from new laws to regulate the method of taking
the oysters.
16

218 THE OYSTER.

I must insist, however, upon one most important
difference between the shad and the oyster. The shad
goes out into the ocean to pasture, and it is at this
time beyond the direct control of man. During its
migration it may pass through the waters of two or
three States before it reaches its feeding-ground, and
private ownership and protection of shad is impossible.
The work of shad-hatching is therefore a proper object
for the employment of the Government, but there is
no reason for Government oyster-farming, as the
oyster is as sedentary as a potato, and it is therefore
perfectly adapted for propagation by individuals.

Among the remedies for the destruction of the oys-
ter-beds the shortening of the season is a favorite
measure, and it has many advocates. This remedy
seems, at first sight, to be an effective one, but a little
thought shows that it is, in reality, of no very great
value.

So long as our present oyster policy is maintained
it will be necessary to have a closed season to facili-
tate the enforcement of other legal measures, but as
it is 'clear to every one that a great number of fisher-
men working upon a bed for a short season will do
just as much damage as a lesser number working for
a longer time, we cannot hope that laws to shorten the
season will, in themselves, effect any great improve-
ment in the condition of the beds.

Ingersoll gives a very vivid description of the
method of fishing in early days, upon one of the
natural beds of Connecticut, which was finally exter-

THE OYSTER. 2Ig

minated by little more than one day's fishing in each
year.

As oysters grow scarce and the demand for them
increases, the only effect of a closed season is to assem-
ble all the oystermen upon the bed at the end of the
season. The oysters which would otherwise have been
removed slowly are then taken away rapidly, and the
plan has no advantages as a means of protection unless
the closed season is long enough to allow a new genera-
tion of young oysters to grow up and replenish the
beds.

Although the closure of the beds for a part of each
year is of very little value in itself, a closed season is
a great help in the enforcement of other means of pro-
tection, and many of the States which own oyster-beds
have passed laws to prevent the taking of oysters in
certain months.

In Maryland in 1884 no dredging was allowed be-
tween April ist and October i5th, and no oysters in the
shell could be carried outside of the State between
April ist and September ist. There is also a State
law in the following words : " It shall be unlawful for
any person or persons to take or catch oysters, except
for private use, to the amount of five bushels per day,
or for sale of the same to any citizen or citizens of the
neighborhood, and to them only for the purpose of
being consumed when sold, or for the purpose of re-
planting or bedding in the waters of the counties
wherein they are caught, or for sale to the citizens of
the county wherein they are caught, and to them only

220 THE OYSTER.

for the purpose of replanting or bedding in the waters
of said counties, between the I5th day of April and
the ist day of September."

A special act of the Legislature is needed to explain
what the ambiguous wording of this section is intended
to prohibit or permit; but Sec. 13, of the Act of 1874,
for which the words above quoted were substituted in
1880, forbids the taking of oysters during the closed
season, except for private use, or for the purpose of
replanting, or for sale to the citizens of the county
next adjoining. It is, therefore, probable that the
framers of the present law wished to permit by it the
taking between April 15 and September ist of oysters
to be sold to residents of the neighborhood for food, or
to citizens of the county for planting, and also to per-
mit the taking of five bushels a day for private use.

Almost the only thing which the prohibitory laws of
the different States have in common is the prohibition
of oyster-fishing in the summer months, and to this
there are exceptions, as some of the Rhode Island beds
are open only in the summer, while those of Connec-
ticut are open at all times. This provision, which is
borrowed from the laws for the protection of game, is
based upon the fact that this time is the spawning
season. Game birds soon desert a region where they
are disturbed in the breeding season, and as they lay
few eggs and care for their helpless young, the de-
struction of an old bird at this time may result in the
death of the whole brood. The provision of the game
law which forbids the capture of game during the

THE OYSTER. 221

breeding season is therefore a wise one, but oysters
are very different from game birds. They discharge
vast numbers of eggs into the water, but they take no
care of their young, and while it is true that the re-
moval of too many mature oysters from a bed destroys
its productiveness, the time when they are removed is
a matter of no consequence, and overfishing in De-
cember is in this respect as bad as overfishing in May.

I have made a study of the spawning time of our
oysters, and have carried my observations over several
years. I have found spawning oysters in our waters
in every month in the year except December, January
and February, and I have had no opportunty to visit
the beds during these three months.

By far the greater number of these oysters, how-
ever, are found to spawn between May 2oth and July
ist, and although the temperature of our spring months
causes considerable variation, this period may properly
be called the spawning season. At any time before
May 2Oth, the disturbance of the beds can do little
harm, and the experience of the Connecticut oyster-
farmers shows that the thorough raking of the beds
just before the spawning season is a positive benefit.
The young oysters cannot attach themselves to dirty
and slimy shells, and if all the sponges, hydroids and
sea-weeds could be dragged from our beds in April
and May, and if the old decayed and slimy shells
could be plowed under and covered with the cleaner
shells from below the surface by dredging just before
the spawning season, the fertility of the beds would be

222 THE OYSTER.

greatly increased, and there is, therefore, nothing in
the nature of the oyster to demand the closure of the
beds in April and May.

I believe that no increase in the value of our beds
can be hoped for until it is brought about by private
cultivation, and that the State should use every possi-
ble means to foster and encourage the oyster-planting
and oyster-farming industries. I show elsewhere that
the States where the oyster industry is most prosper-
ous have found it necessary and to their advantage to
use the natural beds chiefly as a supply of seed for
planting, and I believe that whenever the people of our
State are prepared to use our great natural advantages
for oyster culture, it will be wise to throw open the
natural beds in the summer time, but at present such
a measure would result in the depletion of the beds,
without any compensating advantage.

Soon after the young oysters are born they fasten
themselves to stones, gravel, bricks, plaster, bottles,
empty shells, living oysters and other clean, hard sub-
stances. They are at first so small and flat that they
are in no danger of injury by dredgers, and there is,
therefore, no reason why the taking of marketable
oysters should not be continued all summer if the large
oysters could be taken away without the young
ones, but these are at first so small that they are in-
visible, and for several months they are too small to be
removed from the shells of larger oysters. As it is
very difficult to enforce culling laws, the opening of
the public beds immediately after the spawning season

THE OYSTER.

223

would cause millions of the small oysters to be carried
away on the shells, and even if the culling laws could
be enforced, many of the small oysters would be car-
ried away on the large ones.

This would be a great advantage if the small oys-
ters were used as seed for planting, but at present
most of them are destroyed.

I therefore believe that, for the present at least, the
public beds should be closed for as long a time as
possible in the fall, in order to give the young oysters
time to grow large enough to render it possible to
detach them from the larger ones and from the shells.
I also think that each public bed should be examined
annually in order to determine how many oysters it
can yield without injury. This examination should be
made in August or September, in order to learn how
many young oysters have settled upn the bed, and as
the analysis and publication of the results of this ex-
amination would require at least two months, the open-
ing of the public beds should be postponed as long as
possible.

After the closure of the packing-houses in the early
spring, most of the oysters which are taken are sold
outside the State at a very low price to planters, who,
in many cases at least, resell to Maryland packers in
September and October at a great advance.

If our own people would themselves engage exten-
sively in the planting business, or if our beds were not
already overtaxed, it would be wise to encourage the
taking of seed to be sold to Northern planters, as this

224

THE OYSTER.

is one of the legitimate sources of the demand for
our oysters.

As soon as our people engage extensively in oys-
ter-planting, and need these months to gather their seed
oysters, and as soon as our beds are sufficiently prolific
to supply Northern planters, we believe that the beds
should be thrown open until June 1st, or even longer.

The experience of Connecticut, where both public
and private beds are open throughout the whole year,
and are rapidly increasing in value, shows that a closed
season is not necessary for the preservation of the beds.

As the closed season is a matter of policy, and is
not due to the nature of the oyster, I believe that it
should be made absolute, and that all laws which per-
mit any one to take oysters from the public beds at
that time should be repealed.

It is possible to stock oyster-farms and planting-
grounds without drawing upon the public beds, and
there is no reason why those oyster-planters who wish
to get their seed from the public beds should not do so
after the oyster season is opened. It is true that they
would then have to compete with the prices paid by
the packers, but as our present oyster policy is opposed
to any private interest in the beds, there is no good
reason why a planter should have oysters from the
public beds any more cheaply than any one else.

The law which allows any person to catch oysters
from the public beds at any time for family use or for
sale in the neighborhood, is a wide loophole for in-

THE OYSTER. 225

fringement of the law, and so long as our present
oyster policy is adhered to, I believe that the public
beds should be absolutely closed during the closed
season.

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