THE WORLD'S MOST VALUABLE WATER CROP 



263 



from grounds under private control and 

 represents an actual aquicultural crop. 



In \'irginia about 50 per cent of the 

 value of the State's oyster industry is 

 contributed by grounds under cultiva- 

 tion, and in Maryland an increasingly 

 large proportion is from private beds — a 

 condition which 25 years ai^o would have 

 been regarded as almost impossible, for 

 at that time these States were firmly 

 committed to the policy of making their 

 oyster industry depend on public or nat- 

 ural beds and restrictive measures, and 

 discouraged the general inauguration of 

 oyster planting on public oyster grounds. 



This policy was in strong contrast with 

 that in the next most important oyster- 

 producing region, namely, Long Island 

 Sound, where the States of New York 

 and Connecticut had cut loose from the 

 old fetish of the sanctity of public oys- 

 ter grounds, had leased or sold those 

 grounds for planting purposes, and had 

 assumed the front rank, although their 

 natural advantages for oyster growing 

 were much inferior to those in Chesa- 

 peake Bay. 



OYSTER CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES 



The rank early attained by the United 

 States in the oyster industry was due to 

 the great area of the oyster-beds ; but 

 the maintenance of that rank depends on 

 the general adoption of oyster culture as 

 the only certain means of insuring a 

 yearly increasing crop that will keep 

 pace with the increasing demand. 



Of the oysters marketed last year, 50 

 per cent came from private or cultivated 

 grounds. Owing, however, to the im- 

 provement in the quality and shape of 

 oysters by cultivation, the product of the 

 private beds represented 70 per cent of 

 the total value of the yield of market 

 oysters. While the quantity of oysters 

 taken from cultivated grounds in the 

 United States is larger than in all the 

 remainder of the world, yet the propor- 

 tion of such oysters to the total output 

 is much smaller than in any other im- 

 portant oyster-producing country. 



Wherever the fishery is active and the 

 demand great, the necessity for artificial 

 measures to maintain the supply sooner 



or later becomes manifest. Some of the 

 States long since ceased to place reliance 

 on natural beds as sources of supply, and 

 encouraged oyster culture by leasing or 

 selling all available grounds to prospec- 

 tive oyster farmers, and each year other 

 States are falling in line for progressive 

 methods. 



The American oyster industry ha? 

 been greatly retarded in one of the most 

 important regions by the failure of the 

 States to adapt themselves to existing 

 conditions and by their deep-seated prej- 

 udice against innovations based on mod- 

 ern conceptions and experience. 



Nowhere in this country is there any 

 excuse for continuing to rely on public 

 oyster grounds as sources of supply, and 

 the proposition to discourage or prohibit 

 individual control of land for agricul- 

 tural purposes would not be less absurd 

 than to prevent or retard the acquisition 

 of submerged lands for aquicultural pur- 

 poses. 



The prosperous condition of our oys- 

 ter industry at present is directly due 

 to the more general acceptance of more 

 rational standards as regards oyster cul- 

 ture, and it is only a question of a few 

 years when there will be unanimous rec- 

 ognition, as an orthodox fact, of what a 

 short time ago would have been regarded 

 as the rankest economic heresy, namely, 

 that natural oyster-beds as a general 

 proposition are to be considered nui- 

 sances, whose perpetuation delays prog- 

 ress and impairs the prosperity of the 

 oyster industry. 



Reduced to its simplest terms, oyster 

 culture in the United States consists in 

 (i) acquiring suitable submerged bot- 

 tom, (2) cleaning and preparing that 

 bottom for the growth of oysters, (^) 

 sowing thereon shells or other material 

 ("cultch") for the attachment and 

 growth of the young oysters, (4) insur- 

 ing the production of larval oysters by 

 the proximity of natural or planted beds 

 of adult oysters, (5) protecting the oys- 

 ter beds from enemies, (6) transplant- 

 ing as occasion requires to prevent over- 

 crowding and to facilitate growth and 

 fattening, and (7) culling and sorting 

 for market. 



