148 THE OYSTER. 



the water of our bay is perfectly adapted for oysters, 

 it is too fresh for starfish. They are sometimes found 

 in the lower part, near the ocean, but they are never 

 numerous enough to do much damage. Our climate 

 is too mild for the ice to do much harm, and the bay is 

 so well sheltered and landlocked that there are few 

 places where oysters are exposed to much danger from 

 storms. Most of our bottoms are so well protected 

 that the hardest winds cause very little movement." 



" You say oyster- farming has been tried in Mary- 

 land. Was it successful?" 



" That depends upon what you mean by success. 

 I can tell you of one farmer who, on about seventy 

 acres of bottom in Virginia, close to the Maryland 

 line, raised a crop of more than three hundred thous- 

 and bushels of fine oysters." 



" He must be making a great fortune. How does it 

 happen that his example is not followed?" 



" He reared his oysters, but he did not harvest them. 

 They were taken by the dredgers." 



" Do you mean that they were stolen ?" 



" Oh no. That is not the word to use. While he 

 was getting ready to gather his crop, the dredgers, who 

 had paid our State licenses to take oysters, got ahead 

 of him and captured them." 



" Were the robbers discovered and punished ? " 



" They were not robbers, and they were not pun- 

 ished. The owner of the oysters, who knew many of 

 them personally, remonstrated with them, but he could 

 not persuade them to go away." 



