OYSTEB BOTTOMS I N MATAGORDA BAY. 41 



SHORES AND BAYOUS. 



Above Dressing 1*01111 there is a practically continuous fringe of 

 scattering oysters along shore and in the bayous, a condition which 

 also prevails at intervals along the south shore almost as far as Tiger 

 [sland. Excepting in the deeper bayous most of these oysters are 

 young and lie in such shallow water as to be exposed for longer or 

 shorter periods during the winter. At the time of the survey a large 

 proportion of them had died, undoubtedly for lack of food and 

 water, as the bottom on which they lay was cracked and seamed from 

 the action of sun and wind. 



Below Tiger Island there are numerous long narrow bayous, usu- 

 ally with muddy bottoms, penetrating the peninsula to the line of 

 sand dunes which fringes the gulf shore. Some of these apparently 

 contain no oysters whatever, but in Zyprian, Thompson, Gove, Big. 

 Maverick, Boggy, Hibber, Cotton, and one or tw T o other bayous there 

 was found a scattering growth in the general localities indicated on 

 the Chart. In most cases these oysters were large and fat, some of 

 them being the best found during the survey. It is understood that 

 certain of these bayous have been planted. 



OYSTER CULTURE. 



NECESSITY AND GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



That the natural oyster beds of Matagorda Bay will not be able 

 to produce sufficient stock to keep pace with the demands of the grow T - 

 ing oyster industry is a proposition which hardly demands demon- 

 stration. The universal history, not only of oysters but of other 

 natural products — of lumber, of natural gas, of land-locked fishes — 

 shows that the belief in unlimited and exhaustless supply eventually 

 brings disaster and the conviction, often too late, that nature's bounty 

 must be aided by man's economy and foresight. On all parts of our 

 coast, even in Maryland, whose waters are vastly more productive 

 than the coast of Texas, the natural oyster beds have been more or 

 less completely exhausted, and the only salvation from extinction of 

 the oyster industry is recourse to planting under some scheme of 

 private ownership. 



DEMAND UPON NATURAL BEDS. 



With the small business of past years the drain upon the natural 

 beds of Matagorda Bay never would have been such as to imperil 

 the supply, but changing conditions incident to the increasing de- 

 mands of a greater population, the multiplication of railroads and 

 their competition for traffic, and the depletion of formerly produc- 

 tive beds on other parts of the Atlantic and gulf coasts have operated 



