ABOUT LOBSTERS 151 



A Plea for Research. An editorial in Maine Coast Fish- 

 erman, January, 1950, is worth repeating here: 



" Those darned fools at the Boothbay Laboratory 

 don't amount to a damn." 



Well, it looks like you're right; they haven't found 

 the cure for pink tail, and they haven't helped much to 

 make lobsters breed faster. 



So what's the use of keeping on with them? Why 

 not close down the whole Lobster Rearing Station and 

 save money? 



Maybe we might be helped in deciding if we look 

 backwards a couple of generations to a man named 

 Pasteur— the man who discovered the pasteurization of 

 milk. He was a scientist and a biologist like the men 

 who run the Boothbay Lab. He set out to learn what 

 bacteria did to wine and other things, including milk. 

 It took him ten years of patient plugging-and getting 

 jeered at most of the time-to discover how to treat 

 milk to make it safe. Of course, today his name is hon- 

 ored and lots of babies owe their lives to him. But Pas- 

 teur wasn't any hero during those weary years of trying, 

 test by test, to learn the answer. 



The staff at Boothbay is good, and they're tackling 

 our problems in the best ways known to science. But 

 it takes time-a lot of it-and it takes a lot of patience to 

 plug ahead when you don't get results right away; par- 

 ticularly if lobstermen keep hollering for more show for 

 their money. 



We ought to sit tight. The Boothbay scientists are 

 learning more all the time. Along with the big searches, 

 they are learning sidelines about lobsters. Frequently, 

 Sea and Shore Fisheries comes out with a leaflet giving 

 more knowledge about lobsters. It is real dope— not 

 guesswork. How are you going to treat this informa- 

 tion? Are you going to jeer, or are you going to think, 

 " That crowd has found out by tests what is so and what 

 isn't so. I'll bank on it that they are right." 



