American Fisheries Society. 167 
circulation. The crates circulate in the water until the eggs are 
all hatched. The hatching is done direct in the water, the eggs 
are removed and the lobsters are fed at proper intervals day and 
night. In anywhere from eight to twenty-one days, varying with 
the temperature of the water principally, these fry pass through 
their successive changes, finally changing their habits when they 
reach the fourth and fifth stage, and are then ready to be 
liberated. 
Dr. Smith: Do you consider it possible, with the apparatus 
now employed, to rear the fourth state, say 1,000,000 lobster- 
lings, without undergoing an expense that would be prohibitive ? 
It seems to me that is the crucial question, as applied to this 
method which has been so successfully evolved by the Rhode 
Island Fish Commission. 
Dr. Gorham: Without any great increase in expense, using 
the same horse power engine, simply by extending floats, and 
increasing the number of bags, we could extend the plant so that 
without very much difficulty we could rear in a season a million 
fry to the fourth stage. 
Mr. Atkins: Would it not take an extra lot of men to oper- 
ate those bags? 
Dr. Gorham: I think the entire number could be easily 
cared for by the same number of men. 
Mr. Titcomb: What do you estimate the cost of the present 
plant to be? 
Dr. Gorham: The laboratory of the Rhode Island Fish 
Commission spends about $3,500 in a year in its investigations 
of lobsters, clams and other shell fish. The lobster season ex- 
tends from the middle of May till the middle of July, or the lat- 
ter part of July, and I should say that certainly less than half of 
the appropriation was devoted to the lobster work. 
Q. Can you give me an estimate of the cost of the plant 
itself, aside from operating expenses ? 
A. I could not say offhand. 
President: The expenses, including all the machinery and 
