14 THE EDIBLE FISHES OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 



This gives an annual average of nearly 17,000,000 oysters, 

 and although this number very strikingly indicates the present 

 importance of the industry, it may be safely stated that, 

 when all the oyster lands are treated in the same way as a 

 comparative few are at present, the output will be at least 

 quadrupled. 



The Oysters produced in New South Wales are already 

 famed for their fine size and excellent quality, and there is, 

 undoubtedly, a great future before the industry. 



I mentioned previously that more than nine-tenths of the 

 New South Wales fish supply was obtained from the coastal 

 lakes and estuaries, thereby indicating that the present supply 

 from inland sources was comparatively small. But though 

 this is so, the inland (western) fisheries are destined to play 

 a far more important part than they do at present; and this 

 naturally, as the western districts are more and more opened 

 up, and conveyance becomes an easier matter; but with the 

 aid of artificial propagation on a grand scale by means of 

 suitable hatcheries, the productive power of the waters in 

 these localities will be greatly increased. There is no doubt 

 also that a valuable food-fish like the Murray Cod — the supply 

 of which is never likely to equal the demand — might be 

 profitably farmed in private lakes and lagoons, as is done 

 with other species in various countries, and might be trans- 

 ferred — with every prospect of success, as far as can at 

 present be seen — to more extensive waters in which it does 

 not now exist. A good instance of what might be done in 

 this way has already been afforded us in our experience with 

 Lake Georgef. In 1893 this was a great sheet of water, 

 22 miles in length by an average width of 7 miles, and having 

 a mean depth of 8 feet. About forty years previously, the 

 lake was practically dry, but in the year 1862, during a time 

 of great flood rains, it received a huge volume of water, the 

 quantity being more or less sustained for many years. The 

 same floods which filled it also brought a stock of Murray 



* Lake George has now practically ceased to exist, having dried up. 



