THE WHOLESOMENESS OF OYSTERS AS FOOD. 
2 
By HENRY C. ROWE, 
President Connecticut Oyster Growers’ Association and New York and New England Oyster Shippers’ 
Association, New Haven, Conn. 
& 
The necessity for the conservation of the resources of the nation has recently 
been brought emphatically before the public. The increase of our population in 
the past and its greater prospective increase emphasize the importance of not 
only conserving our resources but of encouraging the creation and development 
of productive industries. During the past thirty-five years such an industry 
has been created and developed in the propagation and growing of oysters. This 
industry produces already annually a great amount of valuable food, its yearly 
value in the states of Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, 
Virginia, and California amounting to $9,316,252. Other states are developing 
the industry, but these named have taken the lead. A large population is 
supported directly by it, and perhaps still more by contributory industries. 
During the same period, while a large portion of our forests have been de- 
stroyed, the oyster farmers and cultivators have purchased from the different 
States permission to cultivate the hitherto barren ground covered by the waters 
of our bays and sounds to a depth of 25, 50, or even 100 feet, and have, by ex- 
pensive and hazardous experiments, caused this unproductive ground to yield 
annually 10,235,566 bushels of oysters, a valuable and nutritious food, and fur- 
nished employment and livelihood to thousands. 
. While the United States and the various states have at public expense prop- 
agated millions of swimming fish, to be caught by those who are engaged in 
these fisheries, the oyster grower and planter has at his own cost propagated his 
own crops and worked out his own results by patient labor, costly experiments, 
and large investment. Instead of having his crops produced and protected for 
him, as has been done for the fishers of swimming fish, he has paid large sums to 
the states for the use of the ground on which he might create and prosecute this 
industry. In Connecticut, for example, the oyster growers have paid to the state 
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