APPENDIX A LXV 



It is interesting to note that apart from the destruction wrought 

 by man, the unfortunate bivalve has so many natural enemies that 

 in order to maintain the normal number of oysters in any bed, each 

 female oyster must deposit something like 16,000,000 eggs each year 

 of its adult life. Brooks has stated that "If all the eggs were allowed 

 to live and grow to maturity, they would fill the entire bay in a single 

 season. The fifth generation of descendants would make more than 

 eight worlds as large as the earth, even if each female laid only one 

 brood of eggs." This gives some faint idea of what the struggle for 

 existence means in the case of the oyster. 



Other countries have already passed through the same experience 

 as Canada and have found that their oyster beds which were supposed 

 to be inexhaustible became sadly depleted by unrestricted fishing, 

 but in every case where the Government of the country has made and 

 enforced wise regulations, acting under competent advice, the industry 

 has been revived. The solution has invariably been found in the culti- 

 vation of oyster beds by private enterprise. This has been the experi- 

 ence in England, France, Japan and the United States. In the latter 

 country the value of the annual oyster supply is $18,000,000, of which 

 $10,000,000 worth is derived from planted beds. 



It seems, however, that a brighter future is in store for the industry 

 in Canada. An unfortunate conflict in jurisdiction between the Dom- 

 inion and Provincial Parliaments was settled in 1912, the Dominion 

 Government waiving its claim to grant leases in the oyster-producing 

 areas in Canada, while retaining its right to full legislative jurisdiction. 

 The leasing of areas for the cultivation of oysters now rests entirely 

 with the Provinces, while the federal Government makes and en- 

 forces the laws and regulations under which the oyster fishing is 

 carried on. With the establishment of this agreement Prince Edward 

 Island at once took steps to have its large areas suitable for oyster 

 cultivation surveyed and subdivided preparatory to leasing them. 

 The general line of policy adopted should not only lead to a revival 

 of the oyster industry but will, it is hoped, develop it far beyond the 

 highest point that it ever reached in former years and thus, as remarked 

 by Mr. Clifford Sifton in his annual address to the Commission of 

 Conservation last fall, — "Our friends in Prince Edward Island will 

 probably before long be able to show the rest of the Dominion that 

 a small province largely removed from the possibility of commercial 

 development open to other provinces of the Dominion, is yet able, 

 by the study of its natural conditions and the development of hitherto 

 neglected lines of production, to attain an enviable degree of general 

 prosperity." 



