REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 11 
increase, if it can be carried further, as present conditions indicate, 
will result in sufficient margin between the cost of the treatment 
and the increased value of the fattened oysters to warrant its recom- 
mendation as a commercial process. The oysters fattened by this 
method are as fine as any placed on the market, and they have been 
used with satisfaction at some of the best hotels and clubs of New 
York, Philadelphia, and Washington. 
Louisiana—The experiments undertaken at the request of the 
Louisiana Shellfish Commission have been continued. The planta- 
tions established during the preceding fiscal year have all been suc- 
cessful, with the exception of one which was selected for the pur- 
pose of determining what could be done with certain apparently 
hopeless adverse conditions. In Barataria Bay, where there has been 
heretofore no oyster fishery whatever, the experiments have been so 
successful during the first year as to result in the establishment of a 
considerable industry, which already yields to the State of Louisi- 
ana in rentals alone an annual income about equal to the total ex- 
penditure of this Bureau in the entire State. The experiments in 
other localities are almost equally successfui, but have not yet at- 
tracted the same attention. At the conclusion of the work a report 
will be presented covering not only matter of immediate importance 
to Louisiana, but the results of investigations having general appli- 
cation to the oyster industries of the country at large. 
Maryland. —In accordance with an act of Congress and at the 
request of the governor of Maryland, the Bureau has rendered 
assistance to the Maryland Shellfish Commission in a survey of the 
oyster beds of that State, detailing an assistant to act in an ad- 
visory capacity, and lending a launch and crew and various instru- 
ments. The work, which is being done in cooperation with the Coast 
and Geodetic Survey, is the most complete of the kind and is a 
necessary preliminary to the restoration of Maryland to her former 
position as the first oyster-producing State. 
SPONGE EXPERIMENTS. 
The series of disasters which for several years have pursued these 
experiments culminated in the almost total destruction of the plan- 
tation at Cape Florida by the great hurricane of October, 1906. Not- 
withstanding the difficulties with which this work has been beset, 
however, satisfactory progress has been made during the past year, 
and it is believed that by the end of next June a report can be issued 
recommending a commercial system of sponge culture. In view of 
the more rapid depletion of the natural beds, which will undoubtedly 
result from recent changes in the methods of the fishery, the Bureau 
is convinced that the preservation of the American sponge industry 
