REPORT OF STATE BIOLOGIST. 3 
ered fair work, though one sack is sometimes obtained. In 
the past, the business has been much more profitable than at 
present. The oysters have dwindled in numbers and in size, 
owing to a too persistent tonging, together with a lack of fore- 
sight on the part of the oystermen. If they could unite ina 
determination to forbid all tonging for two years or more on 
certain reserved portions of the natural beds, and persist for 
a number of years in such a plan, using care with the un- 
marketable seed, besides taking the best possible precautions 
along modern lines for catching ‘‘spat,’’ I believe the in- 
dustry could be restored to something like what it was ten 
years ago. But if the present methods continue, I will pre- 
dict the extinction of the industry before many years. There 
are at present less than twelve men oystering at Yaquina 
Bay, yet if all of that small number depended for their living 
on selling oysters, they would fare badly. Some of them 
turn their attention to salmon fishing during a part of Au- 
gust, September, October and November. The oystermen 
who do not fish claim, and some of those who do fish ac- 
knowledge, that while drifting at low tide the weighted nets 
drag the bottom and in passing over the oyster beds disturb 
the oysters at a time when the oyster spat is still young, del- 
icate and easily injured, besides rolling the adult oysters 
about at a time when they should be let alone, namely, the 
spawning period. From necessarily limited observations on 
my own part and from careful inquiry from reliable parties, 
I am inclined to think that this complaint is well founded. 
The oystermen have been in the past united in the Yaquina 
Bay Oystermen’s Association, which, in 1868, drew up certain 
laws regulating oystering, which laws were afterwards made 
state laws by the legislature. In accordance with these laws, 
one is obliged to have resided twelve months in the state and 
six months in the county before he can tong oysters. Each 
oysterman can obtain from the state for use as private bed 
two acres of tide land, and only two. 
Respectfully, 
FE. bk. WASHBURN, 
State Biologist. 
