SOMK FACTORS IN THE OYSTER PROBLEM. 



BY H. F. MOORE, 



Assistant, United States Fish Commission. 



The animal product of the oyster-beds of the United States is estimated to be 

 worth $17,000,000, approximately one- third of the entire yearly value of our fisheries. 

 Geographically this income is very unequally distributed, the eight maritime States 

 between Cape Cod and Cape Henry receiving 90 per cent and the same number of 

 States south of Cape Henry, notwithstanding their greater coast line, but 7 per cent. 



While there are good economic reasons why the oyster yield from Virginia north- 

 ward should be greater than from North Carolina southward, it may well be doubted 

 if there be sufficient reason for the great discrepancy that now exists in the produc- 

 tion of the two regions. The northern beds are, generally speaking, in the midst of 

 our densest population and in the vicinity of our greatest cities. About CO per cent 

 of our population dwells in the compact area lying north of North Carolina and 

 Tennessee and east of the Mississippi River. Such populous cities as Boston, New 

 York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington are within a few hours travel of the 

 beds, and the cities on the Great Lakes and in the interior of the middle West are 

 scarcely a day's journey removed. Oysters are more commonly consumed in such 

 places rather than in more sparsely settled regions. In rural districts the oyster is 

 looked upon as a luxury rarely to be enjoyed, but in the cities and towns of the East 

 they are a familiar article of diet even among the poor. 



So far, then, as the near-by demand is concerned, the Northern oystermen are incom- 

 parably more favored than their Southern brethren, but certain advantages which the 

 South possesses should to some extent offset this and enable the Southern growers to 

 obtain more equitable distribution of the business and its accruing profits. It has 

 been to some extent demonstrated that the distance of the Southern beds from the 

 Northern market is not an insuperable bar to profitable competition, but, granting that 

 the oysters from the Gulf coast can not compete in the markets of the Atlantic sea- 

 board north of the Chesapeake, there still remains a large field which may be entered 

 upon with advantage. 



Dealing with air-line distances, Baltimore is nearly 400 miles nearer Chicago 

 than is Mobile, the nearest important city on the Gulf coast; but westward of the 

 Mississippi the Gulf States can compete on equal or superior terms, so far as distance 

 is concerned, with any of the great oyster markets of the East. Geographically, there- 

 fore, they are more favorably situated with regard to 80 per cent of our territory and 

 40 per cent of our population than are the States of the North Atlantic coast. As 

 many of you are aware, oysters have for some years been shipped from Gulf ports to 

 Chicago and other trans-Appalachian cities, and dealers in several places are carrying 

 on trade with the entire region west of the Mississippi, even as far as the shores of the 

 Pacific, and there appears to be no sufficient economic reason why this trade should 

 not be vastly increased. 



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