746 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



A DISCUSSION OF THE PROPOSITION TO PROHIBIT DREDG- 

 ING, AND AN EXAMINATION OF THE BEST METHOD OF 



PROTECTING AND REGULATING THE TONGING AND 



PLANTING INDUSTRIES. 



The favourite remedy for the difficulty, at least among 

 those fishermen who are not dredgers, is the prohibition 

 of dredging. Everyone knows that our beds are deterior- 

 ating because they are excessively fished, and everyone 

 knows, too, that most of this fishing has been done by 

 dredgers. It is therefore 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 

 dredgers, because the dredge is more effective and econo- 

 mical 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 beds in deep 

 water would escape, but they would then be, like many of 

 the deep water beds of Virginia, of no use to anyone 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 where 

 no dredges are used the excessive working of the beds 

 with tongs soon causes their destruction, we will here note 

 some cases where beds have been exterminated with tongs 

 alone. 



. . . . In the early days of the colony of Rhode 

 Island, oysters were found there in great abundance. No 

 dredging has been allowed in this State for more than one 

 hundred years, or since October, 1766, at which date the 



