470 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



The natural advantages for cultivating oysters afforded by the Chesapeake, with the innu- 

 merable erects and rivulets tributary to it, are probably not surpassed in the world. The trade 

 is but in its first stage of development. It can, and eventually will, be increased many fold. With 

 proper attention paid to cultivation the bay may be made to furnish an inexhaustible supply of 

 oysters. Where the trade now gives employment to one workman it should in the future give still 

 more remunerative employment to at least a dozen. The capacity for increase is practically 

 unlimited, and the demand is yearly increasing. The sooner the oystermen are forced, by the 

 exhaustion of the natural beds, to engage in planting, the better it will be for all concerned, as 

 the trade will then enter a healthier and more prosperous condition. There are many difficulties 

 in the way, however, which should receive the most thorough scientific investigation. 



The selection of the best planting-grounds, the causes of success or failure, the reason for the 

 fact that sometimes for several consecutive years the oysters of an entire river may be very poor, 

 and hence unsalable, and then suddenly, in one season, attain unusual excellence, are questions of 

 absorbing interest, but little understood by the oystermen. The influence of salt or fresh water, 

 according as the rainfall may be great or small, the tides and the winds, may all be studied with 

 great pecuniary benefit to those concerned in Ihe oyster trade. A statement made by one of the 

 most experienced oystermen of Virginia, and confirmed by my own investigations, is to the effect 

 that tongers rarely, if ever, accumulate money by their own labors unless they engage in planting. 

 It is very true that planting is by no means always profitable. Its results are as uncertain as the 

 cultivation of land, if not more so; but it is still, in the long run, far more profitable than tonging 

 from natural rocks. It offers almost the only possible hope to the tonger of ever acquiring even 

 a moderate competence. The work of Professor Brooks, of the Johns Hopkins University, in 

 attempting the artificial propagation of oysters, has not yet progressed far enough to demonstrate 

 the practicability of restocking the bay with an unlimited number of oysters by this means; but 

 after all he has accomplished, it is safe to believe that he will continue the work until he has met 

 with complete success. Planting will then prove still more profitable, as it will always be possible 

 to obtain an abundance of oysters to be used as plants, which is not now the case. Chincoteague 

 Bay, covering perhaps about the finest planting grounds in the world, has a very extensive 

 business in this branch of the trade. The whole bay is staked off in small plats, which are always 

 salable should the owner desire to retire from the business of planting. Oysters are bought in 

 the Chesapeake Bay at prices ranging from ten to twenty cents per bushel, carried by vessels to 

 Chincoteague and there planted, and allowed to remain undisturbed for two or three years. 

 Sometimes they will remain very poor for several successive seasons, and at times it happens that 

 the entire bed will be found on examination to be dead. The winter of 1879-'SO was the most 

 profitable one that Chincoteague Bay has known for many years. The oysters were large, fat, 

 and finely flavored, while for several preceding years they had been poor and almost entirely 

 unsalable, and the trade in consequence had been very unprofitable. Chincoteague oysters are 

 shipped almost exclusively to New York and Philadelphia, and during good seasons command 

 high prices. From September 1, 1879, to May 15, 1SSO, the shipments from the bay amounted to 

 318,113 bushels, of which 166,113 bushels passed over the Worcester Railroad and 152,000 bushels 

 were shipped in sail- vessels. Of those shipped over the Worcester road, 71,184 bushels were 

 taken directly from the bay; while 94,929 bushels were taken from small creeks on the Maryland 

 shore, where they had been transplanted and allowed to stay for a day for the purpose of fa ttening. 

 It is a fact well known to oystermen that when an oyster is taken from salt water and placed in 

 fresh, it will in two tides be bloated up very much; and thus, having the appearance of being fat, 

 it commands a large price. If allowed to remain in fresh water longer than a day it soon becomes 



