52 



the French coast, and the regulations of other nations have been made and enforced in time to 

 prevent the depletion of their beds. 



As an instance of the effect of this protective policy, when understandingly conceived and 

 rigidly enforced, the beds in the Bay of Arcachon are a good example. In 1870, through over- 

 fishing, they had become entirely exhausted; but, by the strict protection afforded them, their 

 fecundity has once more become so great (in 1870) that the waters of the bay from June until 

 August are filled with the young swarm. On a bed when dry, at low spring ebbs, comprising 26.7 

 acres, there were taken by forty or fifty persons, in about two and a half hours, 60,000 oysters. 

 That part of the bed was immediately buoyed, and no more fishing allowed during tbe season. 



Having seen what is considered necessary for the protection of the beds by European nations, 

 and why it is necessary, the question is, how we can best use their experience. The best remedy 

 for any evil is tbe removal of the cause, and we have concluded that the cause of the evil in Tan- 

 gier and Pocomoke Sounds is over dredging and the destruction of the young brood. Therefore, 

 until the rate of production and the proportion between the number spawned and the number 

 reaching maturity is decided, only a specified number should be taken off of each bed in the 

 Sounds. If observations, both as to the number removed and the increase or decrease of the 

 number to the square yard were continued, a basis might be found for the establishment of the 

 maximum number to be removed; but until that number is established no working of the beds 

 should be permitted between the middle of April and the 1st of November, and none of the beds in 

 Pocomoke Sound should be dredged over at all, except so much as it is necessary to clean them. 



There should be a sufficient number of oyster guard-boats to superintend the dredging, both 

 in general and when for cleansing purposes, to collect statistics as to the number of young and 

 mature oysters removed, and to make all observations as to tbe number to the square yard. They 

 might also collect a good deal of other useful information while on the beds. During September 

 and October they should examine the beds, in order to ascertain the number of young, and those 

 beds having a large proportion should be reserved from dredging operations until the young are 

 able to resist the action of the dredge. JSTo oysters below a certain size should be taken off the 

 beds, and it should be punishable to have those under the specified size in possession. Whenever 

 it is judged that any bed open to general fishing is being worked beyond its capacity, the oyster 

 guard should have power to prevent any further dredging on it. When any bed with a large 

 number of young upon it is open, either the packets or fishermen should be compelled, as far as 

 possible, to return the shells to the beds, or the hard bottoms surrounding them, within a certain 

 specified time, provided that the oysters were opened in their immediate vicinity. Large numbers 

 of young would thus be saved, and the areas of the beds increased. ISTo one should be allowed to 

 take or to possess an oyster having more than a specified number of young attached to it. During 

 the time when not otherwise employed, the oyster guard-boats could be usefully engaged in 

 removing the weeds and grass from the sand shoals and the moss from the closed beds. It must 

 be remembered that dredging is not an unmixed evil, and that the improvement of the oysters and 

 the extended areas of the beds are mainly due to it ; but it should be conducted under suitable 

 restrictions, and in this connection may be advised the use of the scrape where it is now prohibited, 

 and the prohibition of the heavy dredges in shoal water and on the soft bottoms. 



If there is any animal known to naturalists that is an enemy of the drill and not harmful to 

 the oyster, its introduction into the Sounds would be a great benefit; and, finally, if in the spring 

 either the State or the fishermen would collect the shells from the piles about the packing-houses 

 and deposit them on the hard bottoms contiguous to the beds, they would furnish an excellent 

 "cultch" for the "spat," and probably make a good catch and a permanent extension of the oyster 

 ground. 



I have made the above suggestions with the hope that they may in some way bear fruit for 

 the benefit of those engaged in the oyster fishery in the Sounds and Bay. Some more adequate 

 protection than that now offered must soon be afforded, or loss and distress among the large 

 number of people in Maryland and Virginia engaged in the fishery will soon follow from the failure 

 (and that more or less sudden) of the oyster industry. In concluding this part of my report, I 

 cannot do better than to again quote Professor Mobius, whose remarks on the preservation of 

 natural banks of oysters are well worthy of attention: 



