BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 233 



135 rriEMORAIVDUM OF THE PRESENT C'OIVDHTIOIV AND FUTURE 



NEEDS OF THE OYSTER IJVDUSTRV. 



By Lieut. FRAWfCIS ^VINSLOAV, U. S. N. 



I have tbe honor to submit the following memoranda relative to the 

 present condition of the oyster industry, with special reference to the 

 Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, and 1 would respectfully press upon 

 your .consideration the necessity for as elaborate and extensive meas- 

 ures as possible to arrest the deterioratiou of the fishery and oyster 

 beds before the latter are entirely exhausted. 



The last census gives 22,195,370 bushels as the product of the oyster 

 industry of the United States. Of this yield the Chesapeake and Dela- 

 ware Bays produced 19,712,320 bushels, or considerably more than three- 

 fourths of the total. Since 1880, however, prices have increased so rap- 

 idly that there is a well-founded opinion that the product of the two 

 bays is rapidly decreasiug. The exportation of oysters from the Ches- 

 apeake and the Delaware has fallen from nearly 1,000,000 bushels per 

 annum in 1880 to about 500,000 bushels in 1883 ; and the increase in the 

 price of the Delaware stock indicates an insufficiency of that supply 

 equaling 500,000 bushels, or there is reason to suppose that there is a 

 falling oft" in the product of the Delaware during the last three years of 

 about 1,000,000 bushels, nearly half the yield in 1879. In the Chesa- 

 peake the indications are more serious. Prices have doubled within the 

 last five years, and, judging by them, the product has fallen off siuce 1880 

 between 4,000,000 and 6,000,000 bushels. The report of the Maryland 

 oyster commission states that the oyster beds of Maryland " are in im- 

 minent danger of complete destruction," and that iu the last three years 

 they have lost about 40 jjer cent of their value. The production of the 

 Maryland beds iu 1880, according to the census, was over 10,000,000 

 bushels. A deterioration of value of 40 per cent would indicate a de- 

 crease in the production of 4,000,000 bushels, which results agrees with 

 that arrived at through the comparison of prices. 



Mr. W. M. Armstrong, a prominent oyster-planter of Virginia, has 

 recently testified before the legislature of that State that the i>roduc- 

 tion of the Virginia beds has, of late, fallen off two-thirds. The 

 yield of the Virginia beds iu 1880, according to the census, was about 

 7,000,000 bushels ; therefore the dimiuutiou of the product is about 

 4,000,000 bushels at the least. I think 8,000,000 bushels would be a 

 low estimate of the decrease in the Chesapeake and Delaware siuce the 

 last census. During the last two years packing and canning houses 

 in Baltimore have frequently been compelled to stoj) Avork on account of 

 the insufficient supply of oysters (see Baltimore Sun, January IG, 1882), 

 and I was informed last winter by tbe most prominent ijacker iu Balti- 

 more that he was forced to take at a high price stock so inferior that 



