The oyster, 209 



It has yielded on the average some ten million bushels 

 of oysters annually from grounds which are capable 

 of yielding five hundred million bushels each year. 

 It has led to the ruin of some of our finest beds, and 

 to the very great injury of all of them, while other 

 States have greatly increased the value of their beds 

 at the same time that they have enlarged and extended 

 the fisheries instead of restricting them. 



It has given a precarious employment for a few 

 months in each year to about fifty thousand oyster- 

 men, while our grounds should give profitable employ- 

 ment, the year round, to five hundred thousand. 



It has paid to the oystermen about two million 

 dollars a year, although our grounds should pay their 

 cultivators more than sixty million dollars a year. 

 Our six hundred thousand acres of oyster-ground 

 have paid to the State treasury about ;^50,ooo a year, 

 which it has cost the State about $52,000 to collect; 

 and it has paid about ;^ 10,000 a year to the School 

 Fund, while our revenue would be more than $6,000,- 

 000 if it were no greater per acre than the revenue from 

 the oyster-grounds of Rhode Island. 



In other States, money invested in the oyster busi- 

 ness has paid an annual interest of more than 200 per 

 cent, while our oysters have never paid to either pack- 

 ers or vessel-owners more than 100 per cent, and of 

 late years they have paid nothing at all. 



The interests of our people demand a complete 

 change in our oyster policy, as rapid and radical as it 

 can be without inflicting avoidable injury or unneces- 

 sary hardship upon any one who is now engaged in 

 the business; for however advantageous to the public 

 9* 



