208 Our Food Mollusks 



ten miles wide, and, in Virginia, its shores are from fif- 

 teen to thirty miles apart. The shore line is everywhere 

 very irregular, with extensive bays, and entering from 

 the west are wide rivers like the Patuxent, Potomac, Rap- 

 phannock, and James, the mouths of which are brackish 

 water estuaries, most favorable for oyster growth. 



In no body of water would necessary conditions for 

 oyster growth be present everywhere on the bottom. It 

 has already been shown that the requirements are many 

 and exact. Even the most skilful culturist cannot make 

 it possible for oysters to grow everywhere in the Chesa- 

 peake; but the relative amount of favorable bottom as 

 compared with that of other oyster fields, where oyster 

 culture has been practised, is very large. If intensive 

 and scientific oyster culture were employed here, as it is 

 in Long Island Sound, the result would astonish the 

 world. 



Only a very fragmentary record of the early industry 

 in this bay has been kept. The importance of so great 

 a natural source of wealth has been recognized, and the 

 legislative bodies of Maryland and Virginia have formu- 

 lated and revised numerous oyster laws; but until com- 

 paratively recent times, it has apparently been deemed 

 unnecessary to record information on any phase of the 

 business. Indeed, no one seems to have been particularly 

 interested in the biological conditions in the bay, or in 

 more than his own part in the industry. 



Following the method of the archeologist, which is al- 

 most the only one available for gaining information on 

 the industry before the middle of the nineteenth century, 

 we are able to obtain a vague idea of the proportions of 

 the oyster trade in the indefinite past from the fact that 

 accumulated shells were used at an early period not only 



