PHILIP H. PARKER 

 for food became great enough. 



"Thus of the 767.6 square nautical miles 

 of Puget Soundj 442 lie in the zone between 3 and 20 

 fathoms depth. If we would consider that half of this 

 could be available for floating oyster culture, we are 

 considering an area of about 221 square nautical miles 

 or approximately l87,4o8 square surface acres. This 

 would be about 28^ of the total surface area of Puget 

 Sound. 



"Various estim.ates of the yield per acre 

 from floating oyster culture are available. Quayle (1956) 

 reports a figure of up to 8,000 bushels per acre per year 

 for Japan. Converting Quayle 's figure of 8,000 bushels 

 to pounds of meat on the basis of 1 gallon per bushel, 

 and 8 pounds of meat per gallon, we arrive at a figure 

 of 64,000 pounds per acre per year. The Panel on Ocean- 

 ography (1966) reports 16,000-32,000 pounds per acre per 

 year from Japan. Thus the available estimates on annual 

 production of oysters by the floating method range from 

 16,000 to 64,000 pounds per acre. Table 1 presents the 

 per acre production figures for floating oyster culture 

 and, for comparison, production figures for several other 

 marine and land crops. From this we see a production of 

 around 300 pounds per acre per year for upland crops. 



