4 THE OYSTER. 



a generation which has seen all our other resources 

 developed and improved. 



Four hundred million bushels of oysters is a vast 

 quantity, and it testifies to the immeasurable value of 

 our waters ; but every one who has studied the subject, 

 either on its scientific side or in the light of the ex- 

 perience of other countries, knows that the harvest of 

 oysters from our bay has never, even at its best, made 

 any approach to what it might have been if we had 

 aided the bounty of nature by human industry and 

 intelligence. The four hundred million bushels is the 

 wild crop which has been supplied by nature, without 

 any aid from man, and it compares with what we might 

 have obtained from our waters in about the same way 

 that the nuts and berries which are gathered in our 

 swamps and forests compare with the harvest from our 

 cultivated fields and gardens and orchards. 



When we have learned to make wise use of our 

 opportunities, and when the oyster-beds of the bay 

 have been brought to perfection, a harvest of four 

 hundred million bushels in half a century will not be 

 regarded as evidence of fertility. 



It will take many years of labor to bring the whole 

 bay under thorough cultivation, and will require a 

 great army of industrious and skillful farmers, and 

 great sums of money ; but the expense and labor will 

 be much less than an equal area of land above water 

 requires. While it may be far away, the time will 

 surely come when the oyster harvest each year will be 

 fully equal to the total harvest of the last fifty years, 



