432 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



short chain is attached, and joined to the chain is a long rope which winds around the windlass. 

 Projecting downwards from the bar, attached to the lower edge of the mouth, are iron teeth, which, 

 as the dredge is drawn over the bottom, scrape up the oysters and guide them into the bag. Every 

 vessel is supplied with two dredges and two windlasses, the latter being made stationary about 

 midway of the deck on each side of the vessel. At the point where the windlass is screwed to the 

 deck 3 or 4 feet of the rail is removed, and fastened to the side of the vessel is an iron bar over 

 which the chain and rope run when the dredge is being worked. The windlasses are so arranged 

 that each is worked by four men at the same time. When the boat reaches the dredging ground 

 the captain takes the helm, and the men prepare for their laborious task. The dredges are thrown 

 overboard and the vessel continues on her course until it is supposed that the dredge, which 

 usually holds 2 or 3 bushels, is full, and then it is hauled up, and its contents, consisting of oysters, 

 stones, shells, crabs, fish, &c., emptied on deck. If the vessel has passed across the bar, she tacks, 

 and recrosses the ground and continues sailing over the same bar for houi's. 



If dredging is done in the day-time the oysters are at once culled, but when working at 

 night this is deferred until morning. Culling consists in separating the oysters from the other 

 things brought up by the dredge, and throwing the latter overboard, while the former are placed in 

 the hold of the vessel. In this manner the work continues until the vessel is loaded, when she at 

 once proceeds to market. A trip will generally take about twelve or thirteen days. The effect 

 of dredging upon an oyster bar has been thoroughly studied both in this country and in Europe, 

 and the conclusion almost invariably reached is that it is beneficial to the beds when properly con- 

 ducted as to time and manner; and my own investigations have satisfied me that this is correct. 

 An oyster bar when left undisturbed for a number of years has a tendency to solidify into an almost 

 impenetrable rock. Dredging prevents this, and by scattering the oysters over a wide area greatly 

 extends the bar. A bushel of wheat placed in one pile will never "increase and multiply," how- 

 ever fertile may be the soil in which it rests; neither will its yield repay for the gathering thereof 

 if the grains are dropped at far-distant points. It is only when well sown, neither too thick nor 

 too thin, that a good harvest may be expected. Such is the case with oysters. Nature has often 

 placed them in one large pile. Dredging, properly conducted, acts like the grain-drill in scatter- 

 ing them over a wider field. But there is great danger that dredging may be carried to such an 

 extent as to leave only an oyster here and there; and then, like the thinly-sown wheat, the yield 

 is too small to be profitable. Such is by some believed to be the present condition of a large part 

 of the bay ; and they hold that there is an abundance of oysters, although so widely scattered that 

 it is very difficult to catch them. In a report upon the " Oyster beds of the Chesapeake Bay," made 

 in 1872, by Mr. O. A. Brown, to the auditor of public accounts of Virginia, it is said that "The 

 dredging of oysters is as necessary to their development and propagation as plowing is to the growth 

 of corn ; the teeth of the dredge take hold of the rank growth of the oyster beds, and, by being 

 dragged through them, loosen them (which is done by hand in France in the management of their 

 oyster parks), and give them room to grow and mature properly ; moreover, beds are continually 

 increased in size, for when the vessel runs off the rock with the chain-bags filled with oysters, the 

 oysters are dragged off on ground where no oysters existed, and thus the beds are extended, and 

 when the vessel is wearing or tacking to get back on the oyster beds, the catch just taken up is 

 being culled off, the cullings thrown overboard to form new cultch for drifting spat to adhere to. 

 Reliable oysterrnen tell me that since dredging has been carried on in Tangier and Pocomoke, the 

 beds have more than doubled in size; and, with the moderate force that worked upon them prior to 

 the war, were continually improving. During the war the waters were thrown open to every one 



