A PRACTICAL METHOD OF SPONGE CULTURE. 
ed 
By H. F. MOORE, 
Scientific Assistant, United States Bureau of Fisheries. 
od 
CONDITIONS AND NEEDS OF THE SPONGE FISHERIES. 
As has been shown elsewhere,® all or most of the important sponge beds 
of the world are being fished in such manner as to give more or less grave 
concern as to their depletion. In the Mediterranean, the Bahamas, Cuba, and 
Florida the danger of commercial extinction is exciting discussion among the 
thoughtful, though often denied by the more shortsighted of those who are 
most intimately concerned, the persons who as fishermen and dealers are 
dependent upon the sponge fishery for a livelihood. The reasons for the immi- 
nence of this danger the writer has elsewhere discussed and the condition is 
here taken for granted. 
Statesmen, men of science, and men of affairs have all taken part in the 
discussion of the measures necessary to perpetuate the supply of this com- 
mercially valuable and almost essential product, viewing the situation not only 
from the standpoint of the sponge fisherman and the dealer, but from the more 
important view of the consumer, who can find no satisfactory substitute for the 
sponge in many of its applications to the arts and domestic uses. It is indubi- 
table that the threatened extinction of many of the beds is due to the employ- 
ment of methods of fishing which are in themselves destructive, and that, 
especially in Florida, the Bahamas, and Cuba, a still greater danger lies in the 
improper use of methods which, properly controlled, would be open to no reason- 
able objection. 
The illegitimate taking of small sponges on the Florida coast by both 
divers and hookers is, for instance, an almost wanton destruction of natural 
wealth. Many of these small sponges, of little practical use and worth but a 
few cents apiece, if given two years’ additional growth would increase in value 
a score, and in addition would furnish myriads of larval sponges to replenish 
the bottoms bared by more legitimate operations. Every young sponge has 
@Moore, H. F.: Commercial sponges and the sponge fisheries, Bulletin Bureau of Fisheries, vol. 
XXVIII, 1908, p. 399-511. 
547 
