A PRACTICAL METHOD OF SPONGE CULTURE. 551 
the sponge and the character of the materials employed appear to have been 
unfit for commercial application. Marenzeller observes: ‘‘As far as our present 
knowledge goes, it is certain that sponge culture will not be profitable for poor 
men, but can be only carried on successfully on a very large scale either by 
wealthy individuals or by joint stock companies.” 
The failure of Buccich’s work to yield commercial results appears to have 
ended experiments in Europe, but about 1879 Mr. Fogarty, a sponge buyer of 
Key West, Fla., planted 216 cuttings in a depth of about 2% feet of water. 
The pieces were about 214 inches long; they were attached to the bottom by 
sticks and wires, and it is stated that it required four months to repair the 
injuries and reestablish growth. Four specimens, said to be six months old, 
sent to the National Museum are stated to have grown from four to six times 
the bulk of the original cuttings. This experiment was never pushed to a con- 
clusion, and the fate of the cuttings, other than those mentioned, is unknown. 
A few years later Mr. R. M. Munroe,,of Cocoanut Grove, Fla., began work in 
Biscayne Bay, where for several years he experimented in fastening cuttings 
to stones and various arrangements of stakes forming hurdles and frames. A 
large proportion of the pieces survived and grew to some extent, but none 
reached a greater bulk than 3 or 4 cubic inches, and practically all were even- 
tually destroyed or lost. The bottom selected and the materials employed 
were in some cases unsuitable and in others the antagonism of some of the 
spongers prompted them to destroy the plants. At this time the first sponge- 
culture law was presented to the legislature of Florida, but it was subsequently 
so amended as to be highly objectionable and unjust to the spongers and it 
consequently failed of passage. 
About 1897-98 several thousand cuttings were planted at Sugar Loaf Key 
by Dr. J. V. Harris, of Key West. They were attached to galvanized iron wire 
laid on the bottom, but the wire soon corroded and broke into short pieces, the 
sponges became detached, and the mortality was very high. From time to time 
I have picked up a considerable quantity of this wire with a few attached sponges. 
Growth appears to have been slow or, after a while, almost entirely arrested, and 
the largest specimens seen by me have been under 4 inches in diameter at an age 
of from 3 to 5 years, the exact age of any given specimen being indeterminate. 
The quality of the sponges in the vicinity of their attachment was also injured 
by iron rust. In addition to the sponges planted as described, Doctor Harris 
planted many thousand cuttings by sowing them broadcast over the bottom. 
It is not improbable that some of these may have attached to rocky patches of 
bottom and grown, but if so they became indistinguishable from tht natural 
growth, and their history is lost. 
