1146 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [8 J 



spat, tliau to the removal of all the adult oysters, which was, of course, 

 never effected. 



Tlie i)reservatiou of the oyster-beds is a matter of vital importance to 

 the United States, for oyster fishing, unsupported by oyster culture, 

 will, within a short period, destroy the employment of tens of thousands, 

 and tbe cheap and favorite food of tens of millions of our people. 



Such transfer has already come to pass in France and Holland, and 

 England, but there appear to be almost uusurmountable difficulties in 

 tbe way of protecting the property of oyster culturists from depreda- 

 tions — difficulties apparently as formidable in England as in America. 

 Professor Huxley, who views these vexed jiroblems with a vision whose 

 clearness is all the more conspicuous from being brought into juxtaposi- 

 tion with the hazy generalizations of other European fishery officials, has 

 pointed out the fallacy of close-time legislation. "Suppose," he re- 

 marks, " that in a country infested by wolves you have a flock of sheep; 

 keeping (he wolves off during the lambing season will not afford much 

 protection if you withdraw shepherd and dogs during the rest of the 

 year. * * * Surely nothing is more obvious than this — that the 

 I)rohibition of taking the oysters from an oyster bed during four months 

 in the year is not the slightest security against its being stripped clean 

 (if such a thing be possible) during the other eight months." 



Something may be effected by laws which allow each bed to rest for 

 a period of years after each season of fishing upon it. It is the general 

 belief, however, that .shell-fish beds must be cultivated as carefully as 

 garden beds, and that this can only be done by leasing them to indi- 

 viduals. This is already the practice in the aSTorthern States, where 

 oysters are planted in new localities. There is difficulty, however, in 

 carrying out this i)olicy in the case of natural beds, to which the fisher- 

 men have had continued access for centuries. It is probable that the 

 present unregulated methods will prevail until the dredging of the nat- 

 ural beds ceases to be remunerative, and that the oyster industry will 

 then be transferred from the improvident fishermen to the care-taking 

 oyster culturists, with a corresponding increase in price and decrease in 

 consumption. 



4. Fishes in ponds, lakes, or streams are quickly exterminated unless 

 the young fish are i)rotected, the spawning season undisturbed, and 

 wholesale methods of capture prohibited. Many of our older States 

 now have excellent laws for the preservation of game and fish, which 

 are enforced, not by fishery wardens, but by the agency of societies and 

 anglers' clubs, whose members are expected to prosecute offenders 

 against the public interest. 



5. A river may quickly be emptied of its anadromous fishes, salmon, 

 shad, and alewives by overfishing in the spawning season, as well as 

 by dams which cut off" the fish from their spawning grounds. Examples 

 of this may be found in dozens of American rivers. 



In the same way sea fishes approaching the coa.sts to spawn upon tkQ 



