A PRACTICAL METHOD OF SPONGE CULTURE. : 583 
use involves more labor than when the form with a short lead wire spindle is 
used. The cuttings should be bound to the disk by short pieces of no. 14 or 
no. 16 Brown & Sharp gauge aluminum wire, passed through the substance of 
the cutting, and thence through the holes in the disk, the ends twisted together 
below. 
The cuttings should be made as already described, and should have prefer- 
ably a volume of 8 to 10 cubic inches, measuring, say, 114 by 2% by 3, or alittle 
less. They should be made as regular as is convenient without the expenditure 
of additional] labor. They can be handled and exposed to the air without special 
precautions, but should not be allowed to remain in foul water. 
If the disks with short spindles are used, the cuttings may be merely threaded 
on to the spindle by means of a needle, as has been already described, the cut- 
tings being pushed down into contact with the cement disk, to which, as well 
as to the spindle, they soon grow fast. The process is much more rapid and less 
laborious than wiring the cuttings to the plain disks, which fact almost com- 
pensates for the increased cost of material. 
The triangles are not recommended excepting when it is necessary to use 
long spindles to raise the sponges above possible sand deposit, in which event 
they are less liable than the disks to capsize under the impact of the waves 
against the larger sponges. They are more difficult to handle and transport 
than are the disks, and more easily broken. When fitted with 8-inch spindles 
of lead-covered iron ribbon, they cost about twice as much per sponge as do the 
disks, and the greater labor of transporting to any considerable distance will add 
to the difference in cost. 
In shoal water the disks or triangles with the cuttings attached may be 
dropped overboard right side up. They will in the great majority of cases sink 
to an upright position on the bottom, though occasionally, in strong currents, 
one will capsize in its descent. Advantage should be taken of the first oppor- 
tunity to inspect the planting, to right the capsized disks, and to shift any that 
may have fallen on those already planted. In deep water there is greater 
liability that the disks will capsize; the danger is less with triangles. Though 
the experiment has not been tried, it is probable that an inclined chute, one 
end resting on the bottom and the other coming to the side of the boat, down 
which the disks could slide, would not only insure an upright position of the 
disks, but would generally facilitate planting. As the boat was hauled ahead 
the disks would be distributed over the bottom in rows. 
FINANCIAL ASPECTS. 
The cost of planting will vary somewhat with the locality, but the following 
figures, based on actual experience at Anclote Key, are fairly representative of 
what may be regarded as average conditions. The computation is based on 
