304 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



also prevent the use of natural beds except for seeding purposes, and thus compel and 

 induce the proper cultivation of the oyster, a mine of untold wealth 'will be opened 

 both for her own exchequer and the people. 



The difficulties, dangers, and delays of transportation are being rapidly overcome 

 by railways and canals some already built and others projected penetrating many of 

 the best oyster regions; and if capital be properly encouraged and protected in its 

 investment, as it assuredly will be, the day is not far distant when the product will 

 be immeasurably increased, the price for home consumption greatly reduced, and an 

 export trade established which will supply the whole of the Western territory of the 

 United States, from the Mississippi to the Pacific coast, at reduced prices. Not only 

 to the capitalist is the field open, but to the skilled oyster-culturists of Chesapeake and 

 I h'la ware bays, Long Island Sound, and the Connecticut shores the State offers cheap 

 oyster lands for sale or rent, and a free supply of seed. To all such, with a mini- 

 mum of capital but with skilled industry and energy, she opens her arms to welcome 

 them to-a home on the verge of her "summer sea," beneath skies which hardly know 

 what winter is, and to cheer them on to fortune and her own industrial development. 

 This is no fair-seeming but false promise, but one tendered in all sincerity and based 

 on facts which the writer has been careful to understate rather than to overestimate. 



ORLEANS, LOUISIANA. 



