37 



At tlu' present time there may be found many places where 

 the former presence of a hiry:e reef can be detenu. nod only by 

 the fact that there is a hard substratum uuder several inches of 

 mud. In other places, where there were extensive reefs not 

 many years ago, there is now nothing to distinguish the area 

 <3xeept that a few scattered, and very much worn, shells may be 

 found. 



The protection of the reefs from destruction by over-lishing 

 is the most difficult problem that has to be met by the enactment 

 of legislation for the protection of the oyster industry. Laws 

 restricting the fishing season to certain periods of the year have 

 proved ineffectual, since the destruction of the reef will take 

 place as certainly as the result of ten men fishing for one month 

 as of one man fishing for ten months. When the source of supply 

 is a common possession, like the natural oyster reefs, each person 

 working thereon attempts to get as large a share as possible of 

 the available supply, and the futun^ productiveness of the reef 

 is left to take care of itself. 



As a result of this system of fishing it frequently happened 

 that all the marketable oysters would be removed from a bed 

 within a few days, or weeks, from the beginning of the fishing 

 reason. AVhen such a result has been brought about within a 

 few weeks, the protection of the reefs during the breeding season 

 is of little use if there are few breeding oysters and practically 

 no clutch to which spat might become attached— although present 

 in abundance. 



In some sections, the presence of large reefs of "coon 

 oysters" that are not fished for market, tends to keep up the 

 supply of breeding oysters, so that if there is any suitable clutch 

 the reproduction of the beds is provided for. 



INCREASE OF OYSTERS BY. ARTIFICIAL MEANS. 



In all of the oyster producting States the supply from the 

 natural reefs has become so greatly reduced that the depend- 

 ence for the annual catch must, for the most part, be placed in 

 the product from the planted beds. Tender the old conditions 

 when every one had the .same right to fish on any rcf. there 

 were no inducements for their prosorvntion -. bnt .mi the other 



