138 Our Food Mollusks 



but for some years following, the increase was very slow. 



By this time there were probably as many steam ves- 

 sels as the condition of the industry in Connecticut de- 

 manded, and they increased in number slowly as it grew. 

 Growth has been steady, and each season sees a few 

 steamers added to the fleet. In 1903 there were about 

 one hundred of them; in 1906 one hundred and fourteen, 

 and that rate of increase may be maintained for some 

 time. 



The average displacement of the steamers employed 

 by the oyster culturists to-day is nearly thirty tons, net. 

 Several of them recently built have a displacement of 

 more than a hundred and forty tons, or nearly ten times 

 the average size. The tendency seems to be toward the 

 construction of larger and more powerful vessels. 



It should be stated that there is still much work on 

 the oyster field that can be done by schooners, sloops, 

 and small boats, and that there has also been a steady 

 increase in their number. 



This demonstration of the utility of steam in northern 

 waters should be of great value to culturists in those 

 fields where steam vessels are not yet in use. So much 

 of the success of northern oyster culture has depended on 

 the development of these boats that it is of prime im- 

 portance that their construction and the nature of their 

 work should be studied by, and generally known to, the 

 culturists in the Chesapeake, the Carolina sounds, and in 

 the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately, publications on the 

 subject are few and meager. 



The great superiority of steam-driven vessels may be 

 indicated by a brief statement of what one of them is 

 actually able to accomplish. This vessel is of seventy-three 

 tons displacement. It has a length of eighty-three feet, 



