116 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



Food. — Not the least of the difficulties connected with rearing 

 lobster fry is the providing of proper and available food. In small 

 experiments the live copepods and other pelagic food natural to the 

 lobsters in these stages can be supplied, but, on a large scale, this is 

 not an easy matter. Naturally, food which sinks to the bottom can 

 not be reached by fry which normally swim or float. 



Requisites of water, etc. — The foregoing facts regarding the charac- 

 teristics of the fry in general and the peculiarities which they manifest 

 when in confinement have to be taken into consideration in any 

 attempt to rear the lobster through the critical period of its life. To 

 these considerations must also be added the important question of an 

 adequate supply of water, uncontaminated by chemical or bacterial 

 impurities, constantly furnished with the proper amount of oxygen, 

 and sufficiently free from injurious gases arising from the metabolism 

 of animal or bacterial content. Finally, in any method of lobster 

 culture, there must be taken into consideration its practicability 

 when applied on a large scale and its feasibility with regard to the 

 cost of operating. 



THE METHOD. 



ESSENTIAL FEATURES AND POSSIBLE VARIATIONS. 



A method by which lobsters can be reared through the larval stage 

 in such proportions and numbers and at such a cost that it may be 

 called a "practical" method has been gradually evolved at the 

 floating laboratory of the Rhode Island Commission of Inland Fish- 

 eries at Wickford, R. I. Essentially, the method consists of con- 

 fining the larval lobsters in cars, either of porous material or pro- 

 vided with screen "windows," set into the ocean itself, and of main- 

 taining within the cars, by mechanical means, a continuous gentle 

 current of water having a rotary and upward trend. In details the 

 method allows of wide variation. Good results have been obtained 

 in small cars made out of water pails; in cars approximately 1 foot, 3 

 feet, 6 feet, and 10 feet in horizontal diameter and 1, 3, or 4 feet deep; 



