VIII 



REPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



neglecting metliods known to be beneficial and continue to depend 

 largely on the natural supply, which is surely becoming exhausted, 

 while other States are reaping important pecuniary returns from more 

 advanced cultural methods. Without implying any criticism of the 

 policy of particular States, attention may profitably be directed to a 

 comparison of the present and past conditions of the oyster industry in 

 the two principal oyster-producing areas, Chesapeake Bay and Long 

 Island Sound. This comparison virtually covers the States of Mary- 

 land and Virginia, New York and Connecticut, whose oyster interests 

 outside of those waters are relatively unimportant. Here the line 

 between the different policies adopted in dealing with the oyster ques- 

 tion is sharply drawn. In the Chesapeake region reliance now, as in 

 the past, is placed on natural beds and restrictive measures, with little 

 attention given to cultivation, while in Long Island Sound active and 

 direct methods are practiced for increasing the supply and the natural 

 beds are but a small factor. 



The following suggestive table shows the oyster output of the four 

 States named, in 1880, when all conducted the oyster industry on 

 practically the same basis, and in recent years when the two regions 

 had widely diverged in their methods. When one considers that the 

 natural advantages possessed by Maryland and Virginia are greatly 

 superior to those of New York and Connecticut, and that in the former 

 States there are 40,000 oyster fishermen and in the latter less than 

 4,000, the significance of the comparison is accentuated. 



Note. — An estimate for 1899, furnished by the New York shell-ttsh commissioner, shows a crop of 

 nearly 4,000,000 bushels for that State. 



The great ocean fisheries for cod, haddock, hake, and halibut, prose- 

 cuted on grounds adjacent to the New England coast and on banks 

 lying to the eastward, are in a very satisfactory condition, the year 

 1899 being in some respects the most remarkable in their entire history. 

 Perhaps the most noteworthy feature of these fisheries is the greatly 

 increased quantity of cod landed in a fresh condition, from both the 

 eastern bauks and the grounds off the New England shore. Up to 

 189G the salt cod was always in excess of the fresh cod; but since that 

 year the reverse has been the case, and in 1899 the fresh fish exceeded 

 the salt fish by 30 per cent, and the yield was more than double that 

 of six years before. As shown in a statistical bulletin issued by the 

 Commission, the quantity of so-called " ground fish" (i. e., cod, haddock, 

 hake, cusk, pollock, and hahbut) lauded at Boston and Gloucester in 



