730 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER Of FISH AND FISHERIES [48] 
numbers of young were produced.* Whoever has followed thus far the 
detailed statements which I have made must be obliged to confess that 
Nature is not to blame for the impoverishment of the oyster-beds along 
the western coast of Europe during the last century, for neither have 
the external conditions of life for the oyster become less favorable nor 
has the fecundity of single animals become less. 
Nothing else but excessive fishing, without protection, has depopu- 
lated the beds. Most of the oystermen and those thoroughly acquainted 
with oyster industry, who reported their experience and opinion, in Lon- 
don, in 1876, to the commission for the investigation of the British oyster- 
fisheries, were entirely of this opinion. But the question will beasked, 
Why were the beds of the west of Europe not overfished in olden times? 
Because, before the time of steamboats, locomotives, and railroads, there 
was a much smaller number of consumers than at present. Then genuine 
connoisseurs were rerely to be found except along the coast where the 
oyster lived. 
In the autumn, when oyster-fishing began, those only were very costly 
which were first caught, but as more were brought in the price rapidly 
fell. On the 21st of September, 1740, the first hundred fresh Schleswig- 
Holstein oysters sold in Hamburg for 1.42 marks (about 35 cents) of 
present money. Later the same day 900 were sold at 1.20 marks (30 
cents) per hundred; then 3,400 at 15 cents; and finally 10,800 at 74 
cents per hundred. On the 15th of October of the same year, and at 
the same place, the first hundred fresh, newly arrived oysters sold for 
2.40 marks; the second hundred for 2.10 marks; then 1,025 were sold 
for 1.80 marks per hundred; then 1,000 at 1.50 marks; then 2,000 at 
1.20 marks; and finally 12,500 at 60 pfennige (L5 cents) per hundred. 
These numbers are taken from the report upon the Schleswig-Holstein 
oyster-banks,} and show that it was necessary to lower the price of oysters 
very soon after the arrival of a large importation into Hamburg harbor, 
if they were to be disposed of in an eatable condition and not entirely 
lost, because there was no adequate means of transporting them into 
the interior. Such a fall in price guarded the oyster-beds from too 
destructive fishing. Soon, by means of steamers and railroads, oysters 
fresh from the beds could be spread far and wide into the country; then 
oyster-eaters began to increase in number; and so, despite the rapid 
advance in price, the demand for oysters increased from year to year. 
This demand was very much in proportion to the spreading of the net- 
work of railroads in England, France, and Germany. It did not come 
into the heads of the oystermen that a more exhaustive fishing would 
tend to depopulate the beds. Year after year they had found an ever- 
ready supply of oysters upon the same beds; why should they not, then, 
take away whatsoever came into their dredge ? 
* Report on Oyster-fisheries, 1876, p. 116, Nos. 2386 and 2357. 
+t H, Kroyer. De danske Oystersbanker. In this work several examples are given, 
at pages 92 and 93, taken from the reports of oyster-culture in Schleswig-Holstein, of 
_ the decrease in price of oysters upon one and the same day at Hamburg. 
