REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 11 



increase, if it can be carried further, as present conditions indicate, 

 will result in sufficient uiargin between the cost of the treatment 

 and the increased value of the fattened oysters to warrant its recom- 

 mendation as a commercial process. The oysters fattened by this 

 method are as fine as any placed on the market, and they have been 

 used with satisfaction at some of the best hotels and clubs of New^ 

 York, Philadelphia, and Washington. 



LoN/-shni((. — The exj^eriments undertaken at the request of the 

 Louisiana Shellfish Conunission have been continued. The planta- 

 tions established during the preceding fiscal year have all been suc- 

 cessful, with the exception of one which was selected for the ])ur- 

 pose of determining what could be done with certain apparently 

 hopeless adverse conditions. In Barataria Bay, where there has been 

 heretofore no oyster fishery whatever, the experiuients have been so 

 successful during the first year as to result in the establishment of a 

 considerable industry, which already yields to the State of Louisi- 

 ana in rentals alone an annual income about equal to the total ex- 

 penditure of this Bureau in the entire State. The experiments in 

 other localities are almost equally successful, but have not yet at- 

 tracted the same attention. At the conclusion of the work a report 

 will be presented covering not only matter of innnediate importance 

 to Louisiana, but the results of investigations having general appli- 

 cation to the oyster industries of the countrj^ at large. 



Maryland. — In accordance with an act of Congress and at the 

 request of the governor of Maryland, the Bureau has rendered 

 assistance to the Mandand Shellfish Commission in a survey of the 

 oyster beds of that State, detailing an assistant to act in an ad- 

 visory capacity, and lending a launch and crew and various instru- 

 ments. The work, which is being done in cooj^eration with the Coast 

 and Geodetic Survey, is the most complete of the kind and is a 

 necessary preliminary^ to the restoration of Maryland to her former 

 position as the first oyster-producing State. 



SPONGE EXPERIMENTS. 



The series of disasters which for several years have pursued these 

 experiments culminated in the almost total destruction of the plan- 

 tation at Cape Florida by the great hurricane of October, 1906. Not- 

 withstanding the difficulties with which this work has been beset, 

 however, satisfactory progress has been made during the past year, 

 and it is believed that by the end of next June a report can be issued 

 recommending a commercial system of sponge culture. In view of 

 the more rapid depletion of the natural beds, which will undoubtedly 

 result from recent changes in the methods of the fishery, the Bureau 

 is convinced that the preservation of the American sponge industry 



