234 THE MOLLUSK FISHERIES 



The preceding report is intended to be a reliable statement 

 of facts, and suggestions for consideration. On such a basis of 

 facts the future policy of developing the shellfisheries must be 

 based. It is the purpose of the Commissioners on Fisheries and 

 Game to hold a series of public hearings in the different sections 

 of the State for the purpose of giving personal expositions of 

 the shellfish conditions and possibilities, and of giving a better 

 opportunity for exchanging, discussing and weighing opinions. 

 Meantime, in considering the conditions of the shellfisheries of 

 Massachusetts, and the laws necessary to improve these condi- 

 tions, the following points are of importance. 

 • The present shellfish laws are based upon the principle of 

 " public " fisheries, and were made at times and at places where 

 there was such a superabundance that the natural increase was 

 sufficient to meet the market demands. Artificial cultivation was 

 unnecessary. The fundamental laws were made in the colonial 

 days. Since then the demand for shellfish as food has enor- 

 mously increased, and for many years the annual natural in- 

 crease has been entirely inadequate to meet these demands. We 

 have outgrown the conditions which the original conception of 

 that law covered. Under parallel conditions it has been found 

 necessary to sell or lease the public lands, in order that the yield 

 of food may be increased by cultivation under the immediate 

 direction and responsibility of individual citizens, and under 

 protection of State and national laws. When it was learned that 

 the yield of a cultivated oyster bed far exceeded the natural 

 product both in quantity and quality, the oyster laws were so 

 modified that an important industry was built up, until to-day 

 practically the entire oyster yield of Massachusetts, Khode 

 Island and Connecticut is from cultivated beds, and the total 

 product is many times the total catch from the natural beds in 

 their palmiest days. To-day not only is it necessary to so modify 

 the oyster laws as to increase the opportunities for better utiliz- 

 ing our bays and estuaries for oyster growing on a more extensive 

 scale than is done at present, but also for developing similar 

 methods of growing clams and quahaugs, and perhaps also 

 scallops. The tidal flats must, as well as the deeper waters, be 

 made to produce food and money by securing a larger yield per 



