OYSTER CULTURE IN AMERICA. 747 



taking of oysters by drags, or otherwise than by tongs, was 

 forbidden under a penalty of ten pounds for each offence, 

 but the Rhode Island beds are now almost completely 

 exhausted. They yield no marketable oysters, and the 

 only place where seed oysters for planting can be procured, 

 in any considerable quantity, is a space of about five miles 

 above the Seekonk River, and the preservation of this bed 

 is due to the fact that the oysters are bright green and are 

 not marketable. Rhode Island has a great and profitable 

 planting industry, but the seed oysters which are used for 

 planting are purchased outside the State. As no dredging 

 has been permitted upon these beds for so long a time, the 

 dearth of oysters in waters where they formerly abounded 

 is certainly due to persistent raking and tonging. 



Ingersoll gives the following instructive 

 account of the extermination, within the last few years, of 

 another valuable and prolific bed upon the New Brunswick 

 coast, by rakes and tongs alone : 



In 1876, a fisherman says that in two weeks over 4000 

 barrels of ovsters were taken awav from the beds at Betla- 



j 



min, in New Brunswick, by ships and schooners which 

 brought their cargoes from the small raking boats upon 

 the beds. At this time the oysters were distributed every- 

 where over the harbour so thickly that every square foot 

 seemed to be occupied, and the beds swarmed with small 

 boats, each operated by two men. Four years later, in 

 1880, the oysters were almost exterminated. 



Old men still remember when rich beds were to be 

 found in Hillsborough bay, in New Brunswick. The 

 oysters were so abundant that they seemed inexhaustible, 

 and a tonging boat could take eight bushels an hour. 

 They have been almost entirely destroyed by tongs alone, 

 and they now yield only a few bushels a year. 



