REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 13 



EXHIBITION OF RESULTS OF SEA-FARMING. 



With the gradual tightening of economic conditions, the increased 

 demand for the products of the sea, and the perfection of effective 

 methods of aquiculture, we are inevitably tending toward an appre- 

 ciation of the enormous natural resources of our Bay. Those who 

 have studied the situation have long recognized this fact. It is 

 definitely stated in the report of the Investigation Committee of 

 forty years ago. Your Commissioners have seen it clearly, and for 

 that reason have put a great deal of hard work into the creation of 

 actual methods of cultivation of species heretofore used for food but 

 not cultivated. The results obtained in clam culture are positive, 

 and prove that a new and very productive industry is within our 

 very grasp. The oyster culture developed by individual enterprise 

 to high efficiency under the nose of the people of some States before 

 they woke up to its value is only an example of what is possible in the 

 culture of other marine animals. In this connection it is illumin- 

 ating to know that in Japan the yearly products of the seaweed 

 industry alone are over three million dollars. 



Under the present conditions in Rhode Island, clam culture, for 

 example, cannot be established until the people generally realize its 

 prospective value and the almost criminal neglect of the present 

 possibilities. Realizing, therefore, that the opening up and the 

 development of these resources of wealth depend upon bringing the 

 facts to the realization of the people, your Commission has systemati- 

 cally endeavored in every way to exhibit the facts in the reports, in 

 the public press, and in the form of specimens of products of exper- 

 imental tests. An exhibition of specimens illustrating the results of 

 clam culture and the growth of the scallop, a model of the apparatus 

 elaborated by your Commission for the rearing of lobsters and fishes, 

 have been exhibited annually at the agricultural fair at Kingston and 

 have been, by the special request of the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries, several times exhibited at international expositions: at 



