464 GEOGEAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



C. REVIEW OF THE OYSTER INDUSTRY. 



BY RICHAKD H. EDMONDS. 

 166. THE OYSTER INTERESTS OF VIRGINIA. 



DREDGING AND TONGING. The waters of Virginia being in many places separated from 

 those of Maryland by imaginary lines only, it is not to be expected that the conditions of the 

 oyster trade and the class of people dependent upon it should show any very material difference 

 iu the two States. Different laws have of course exerted an influence upon some features of the 

 trade, but the essential and most important fact in regard to the trade in both States is the 

 same that the oystermen are generally poor and illiterate, often intemperate and reckless. 



Dredging on natural rocks was abolished iu Virginia in 1879, and is only allowed at present 

 on private beds; few, however, avail themselves of this privilege. In some parts of the State 

 where planting is exteusively conducted there are a few dredge-boats; but they meet with consid- 

 erable opposition, as it is very generally believed by planters who do not dredge that the dredgers 

 do not confine their operations to their own beds. This belief is probably correct. The beds 

 arc staked off with poles, sometimes 50 to 100 yards apart, and the dredgers sailing over one bed 

 can scarcely, even if so disposed, keep from crossing the line which separates adjoining beds. The 

 law entirely abolishing dredging on natural rocks was undoubtedly a mistake, since there are 

 many localities iu the State where, rightly restricted, it would prove very advantageous to the 

 beds; while there are other places where the water is so deep that tongiug cannot be carried on, 

 and the beds are thus lying idle, of no value to the State or to any individual. The advantages 

 as well as the disadvantages of dredging having been discussed in the report upon the oyster trade 

 of Maryland, it is not necessary to refer to it here. The same course will bo pursued with regard 

 to other branches of the trade: it has not been thought necessary iu the report on Virginia to 

 repeat the discussion of subjects previously elaborated in the Maryland report. 



The tongiug interests of Virginia are far more extensive than the same interests in Maryland, 

 and differ slightly in a few other respects, the most important of which is, that the proportion of 

 negroes in the trade is greater in the former State than iu the latter. 



Previous to the late war the oystermen of Virginia were composed of negroes working for 

 their masters, and of a very rough class of whites; but at the close of the war the demand for 

 oysters was very great, and high prices were paid, and many who had been reduced from wealth 

 to poverty were glad to avail themselves of the chance to make a support by oystering, which was 

 at that time a very profitable employment. The four years of war, during which the oysters had 

 almost a complete rest in many parts of the State, gave them a chance for development, and when 

 the trade revived the beds were well stocked with large, finely-flavored oysters. Men from nearly 

 all occupations, representing all classes of society, eagerly entered the business, and soon there 

 were hundreds of oystermen where formerly there had been but a dozen or so. Many of the most 

 extensive farmers in the tide-water counties ftrand that the conditions of labor had so greatly 

 changed that to make a living it was necessary for them to devote all spare time to the oyster 

 trade. This is still done to a considerable extent by those whose farms border on some salt-water 

 creek or river, but the great bulk of the trade is in the hands of a rougher class, and in certain 

 parts of the State it is almost monopolized by negroes. A very noticeable fact in connection with 

 the tonging interests of Virginia and Maryland, and especially of the former State, is the almost 



