THE OYSTER-INDUSTRY. 81 



bcijau to attempt to form public opiuiou aud secure legislatiou tendiug to repress this dangerous competition. An 

 early success was had, in so far that steam-dredging was permitted on public seed-ground in the sound only on two 

 days of each week. Not satisfied with this, however, laws were sought which, if they did not prohibit the use 

 of steam altogether, should at least restrict it to the designated planting-ground of tlie owner. The controversy 

 which ensued then was long aud bitter. In my inexperience it woidd be presumptuous in me to assume a 

 judicial function; and here, as elsewhere, I shall restrict myself to a brief presentation of the arguments o])posed, 

 merely pointing out, before I begin, that this contest is aiiparently the same which has always been waged b,\ hauil- 

 labor against machinery, and by poor machines against those more adequate to the work — a tight originating in 

 ignorance and uuprogressiveucss, and perpetuated through jealousy and personal feeling. I do not say this of this 

 controversy alone, but of the whole history of invention and progress in the arts. I have no doubt the Indians 

 and first settlers thought the moUusks of the coast would be exterminated, when some enterprising Puritan or 

 Knickerbocker brought the destructive rake and tongs or the terrible clamlioe to bear upon them ; and the 

 owners of these again were filled M'ith dismay, wlien the first dredge was explained to them and boldly thrown 

 over, first from a row-boat and then from sloop and schooner. The transition to steam-power seems only another 

 similar step, and the complaints against it are equally valid against superseding steam cotton-looms to hand- 

 weaving, or the swift circular-saw to the old pit method. There is hardly any branch of the seine-fisheries now 

 where steam is not profitably employed, having overcome opposition, and its service is widening every day. And 

 as steam has won before, and approved its title to the crown by its results, so I feel confident it will again be 

 victorious — for the world does move. 



The arguments by which the employment of steam-power on Connecticut's public oyster-beds is sought to be 

 abolished are about these, as I gather them, chielly from a minority report to the legislatxrre of 1881, on a bill 

 before that body : 



There are within the Iwundaries of the waters of Connecticut, at various points along the northern shore of 

 Long Island sound, in the aggregate about G,()0() acres of "natiu-al oyster-beds" of the state. 



On a comparatively small portion of this area, Ijing in the channels of rivers and in shallow waters near the 

 shore, oysters are customarily allowed to grow to maturity, and are gathered for market and for their own 

 consumption by the poorer classes of the people. On a much larger portion of the natural oyster-beds the oysters 

 are ordinarily collected when small, to be planted by oyster-cultivators as seed upon their private beds. The 

 gathering of these seed-oysters is accomplished by means of di-edges attached by ropes to boats in motion, and so 

 diawn along the bottom over the oyster-beds. 



There are directly interested in this business of gathering and planting oysters, about 3,000 citizens of the 

 state, most of them small operators with limited capital, owning from two to twenty acres of designated ground 

 for oyster planting— and small vessels propelled by sail or oars. Some of them own no ground at all, but gain 

 their livelihood by gatliering the seed and selling it to larger proprietors. Seven indi^^duals of the entire number 

 of our citizens engaged in this piusuit employ steam tugs or propellers in dredging. The state, by previous 

 legislation, has prohibited this use of steam-power on a tract which includes about 633 acres .of the public natural 

 growth, leaving a tract which includes about 5,100 acres subject to such use. The object of the desired legislation 

 is to prohibit the fiu-thcr use of this steam-power, and to place all our citizens on an equality in the means employed 

 in the collection of this their common property from this common or public domain. Such legislative prohibition 

 seems to be called for as a matter of fairness and justice to all persons who, by virtue of their common proprietorship, 

 are equally entitled to gather oysters and other shellfish from the public domains of the state, and more particularly 

 to that large class of our citizens who depend upon the prosecution of this business for the livelihood of themselves 

 and their families. It has Ijeen found, from evidence submitted to state-authorities under oath, that by reason of 

 the limited resources of this large class of our citizens but very few, if any of them, are, or are likely to be, able 

 to provide themselves with steam power ; that by the use of this power a single vessel can, in a given space of time, 

 collect of this common public projjcrty a quantity twelve times larger than can be gathered by an average sailing- 

 vessel; thus being independent of wind and tide, a steamer can prosecute its work about twice as many days in 

 each week, and many more hours in each day; that the earlier part of the dredging season is equally subject to 

 calms, and that by a combination of these various causes, together with the fact that the annual crop of seed- 

 oysters is limited, and in any given season is liable in a great measvu-e to be exhausted, the favored few, if steam- 

 dredging on the public property is allowed to continue, will inevitably gain a vast and unjust advantage over the 

 larger and poorer class, and practically drive them from the field, deprive them of their employment, in many 

 cases reduce them to destitution, and create a monopoly of the business in the hands of a few individuals. 



To this view of the case, it is objected, that though tliese facts may be undeniable, yet it is counter to the spirit 

 of the age, and a blind and inequitable suppression of private enterprise, to deprive any individual of the free use of 

 all the improvements which science and his own resources have placed at his command. This would have weight 

 if the subject under consideration were simply a matter of private rights, if it were simply a question what 

 imiirovements might be employed by individuals in connection with the use of their own private property. 



