236 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



PRESENT CONDITION OF THE OYSTER TRADE OP WELLFLEET. Ingersoll, in bis report on 

 the oyster business, says: 



"It is probable that this season (1S79-'SO) the sum of the freights paid to Wellfleet and Prov- 

 iucetowu schooners on oyster cargoes alone will exceed $75,000, and the losses and casualties will 

 be few. The competition of the steamers between Norfolk and Boston, of the railroads, and 

 particularly the recent custom of opening so many oysters in Virginia, has been severely hurtful, 

 however, to the oyster-schooner interests. 



"I may add an odd note of interest to naturalists. At Wellfleet are found many marine 

 invertebrates not known elsewhere north of Virginia, which the naturalists of the United States 

 Fish Commission say were probably introduced with imported oysters. 



Number of planters, wholesale dealers, and shippers 3 



Number of vessels engaged (including those owned at Proviucetowu) 46 



Present value of same $1S5,000 



Number of sailors employed (three months) 200 



Earnings of same $15, 000 



Total earnings of vessels $75,000 



Annual sales of 



I. Native oysters bushels.. 600 



Value of same $500 



II. Chesapeake "plants" bushels.. 6,000 



Value of same $5,000 



Total value of oysters sold annually $5,500 



"GROWTH OF THE OYSTER TRADE OF WELLFLEET. Realizing that their-uatural resources in 

 oysters had disappeared, and that any attempt to preserve the beds by a system of propagation 

 was unsuccessful, the people of the coast of Massachusetts Bay turned their attention many years 

 ago to replacing their oysters by importations from more favored regions, which should be kept 

 in good condition during the warmer half of the year by being laid down in the shore-water, and 

 so held in readiness for the autumn trade. This operation was called 'planting,' but it is a misuse 

 of the word, and the other popular phrases, 'laying down,' or 'bedding,' express the fact more 

 truthfully. It is not oyster culture at all, but only a device of trade to get fresh oysters and 

 increase their size and flavor, which adds proportionate profit in selling. It is neither intended nor 

 desired that they shall spawn. 



"Just when this practice began on Cape Cod for Wellfleet, whence had come the latest and 

 best of the native oysters, naturally became the headquarters of the trade is uncertain ; no doubt 

 it was some time before the opening of the present century. There is a gentleman now living in 

 the village of Wellfleet, Mr. Jesse D. Hawes, who is 84 years old. He cannot remember when 

 they did not bring some oysters every fall from New York Bay, to use at home and sell in Boston. 



" It is surmised that when the native beds became exhausted, the inhabitants got into the 

 habit of going to Buzzard's and Narragansett Bays, then to the Connecticut shore, and finally to 

 New York, and laying down more and more yearly in Wellfleet Harbor, until finally a considerable 

 business grew. Egg Harbor, New Jersey, was also a ground much frequented a little later by 

 oystermen. 



"By the year 1820, I am informed by Mr. Frederick W. True, who made inquiries for me on 

 this subject, 12,000 to 14,000 bushels were brought to Wellfleet yearly, and ten or twelve shops 

 were opened by Wellfleet men -for their disposal in Boston and Portland. This accounts for the 

 striking tact that there is hardly an oyster dealer on the New England coast, north of Cape Cod, 

 who is not a native of Wellfleet, and a certain small circle of old names seems to inclose the whole 



