100 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



the catch was only half that of 1882. Many men remember when oysters 

 were only $1 a barrel, while, in recent years, Malpeques have brought as 

 much as S12. 



In the early years of the fishery there was a protracted period of in- 

 difference, during which the oyster was used by few people and then more 

 as a novelty than as a staple article of food. This was followed by a period 

 of strife between fishermen and farmers as to whether it should be re- 

 garded as a food or as a fertilizer. In the meantime improvements in the 

 means and rapidity of transportation had carried oysters inland to a 

 widening market and occasioned a demand which left no room for doubt 

 as to their uses. The at first locally abundant, easily procured, cheap 

 oyster rose in price and became sought after to such an extent that more 

 and more beds were discovered until all our areas had been explored. The 

 demand continued and the natural supply became so far reduced that many 

 people feared all the beds might be depleted and the oyster becom.e a thing 

 of the past. Places that formerly yielded many barrels per j^ear can now 

 furnish none. Beds which were at one time prolific are now not worth 

 fishing. In some districts the greater part of the season's catch is taken 

 on the first day. It is no uncommon spectacle to see fleets of boats as- 

 sembled over promising areas awaiting the hour of open fishing. I have 

 myself had hauled in succession four dredgefuls of dead shells among 

 which could not be found a single living oyster; and this was on the Shediac 

 reserve, which for seventeen years had been under the care of an oyster 

 expert, but had been thrown open immediately before the election of the 

 previous autumn and almost destroyed by the crowds of fishermen who 

 flocked from every direction and unreasonable distances. The fishing lasted 

 for eight working days, during which time were taken 585 bushels of oysters 

 (and 4,054 bushels of quahaugs), of which 419 bushels of oysters (and 2,853 

 bushels of quahaUgs) were taken on the first day by 91 men. In Bedeque 

 bay, P.E.I., the oyster has apparently been exterminated. Many places 

 along the southern shore of Nova Scotia have become depleted. On the 

 south-western coast of the gulf of Maine, where at one time there were 

 great numbers, there are now perhaps no living oysters. The opinions 

 of fishermen, the comparison of the fishery reports, the examination of 

 particular localities, all point in one direction— that our oyster fishery is 

 rapidly declining and that there is danger of its complete loss. 



Natural Agents of Destruction. — -This is not surprising. It has been 

 the history of other places and of other fisheries. Under the primitive 

 conditions that exist before man's interference, nature settles into a sort 

 of equipoise whereby the losses due to the accidents of life are made good 

 by reproduction. It is an expensive method but it is the only one possible 

 under the mechanical, self-adjusting processes of unassisted nature. The 

 whole number of individuals remains about the same from year to year. 

 To maintain this balance each adult female in her life-time is required to 



