FISHERIES IN VIRGINIA. 



By McDonald Lee, 

 Commissioner of Game and Inland Fisheries, Richmond, Va. 



It is rather a difficult matter to get the up-country people 

 to understand the value of our fish and oyster industries in 

 Tidewater — to the people of one-fifth of the state directly, 

 and indirectly to the state's tax problem in general. But 

 for these water industries a large part of the Tidewater 

 section would be barren wastes, inhabited only by fiddlers, 

 sand-crabs and buzzards, and of no taxable value to the 

 state at large. It is largely due to this favorable location 

 on water-courses and nature's gifts that the personal and 

 realty values of Tidewater equal or exceed those of other 

 grand divisions of the state. This should be the answer to 

 all criticism of legislators and others when the fish and 

 oyster industries are under discussion. Approximately 

 16,000 persons are wholly engaged in our water industries, 

 and probably 60,000 more indirectly connected. 



Not only does Virginia present in its physical aspect the 

 best haven in area for shipping on the Atlantic coast, but it 

 occupies the central position of ingress and egress both 

 North and South. So much for its great Hampton Roads 

 and the five major rivers, with their splendid tributaries, 

 which feed it and course on to the sea. Our topic at present 

 is nature's material asset there — that of fishes and oysters. 



The blue crab of the Chesapeake is really the only 

 commercial crab of importance, and Virginia furnishes the 

 greater part of this product. True Crisfield, Md., on the 

 border, is the center of the soft crab industry, supplied large- 

 ly from the crags of Pokomoke Sound (wholly within Vir- 

 ginia) and Tangier Sound (largely in our state.) To this 

 Maryland market comes also the soft crab from the Potomac, 

 Rappahannock, York and the Eastern and Western shores of 

 Chesapeake Bay. Hampton, Virginia, is the center of the 

 hard crab market, for according to nature, hard crabs are 

 more abundant in the lower Chesapeake, while soft crabs 

 predominate in the upper Chesapeake. From both Cris- 

 field and Hampton soft and hard crabs are shipped North 

 and West in the raw state, and also canned for transport to 

 California as well as the European markets. The crab in- 

 dustry engages our watermen, and those of Maryland, at 



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