146 
Tangier Sound south of Jane’s Island. The fourth section all 
of Pocomoke Sound. 
Assembling the number of dredgers known to have been 
dredging on these different sections, and the number of bush- 
els taken by them, I have deduced the following results : 
Locality. 
| 1st Section 
Upper Tangier. 
2d Section 
Middle Tangier. 
3d Section 
Lower Tangier. 
| 4tli Section 
j Pocomoke. 
Total No. bushels taken 
(in) 
15,185 
10,115 
18,060 
* 2,673 
No. of days 
4 
4 
6 
3 
Average per day 
3,783 
2.523 
8.060 
891 
Average No. Oysters per day 
567,450 
378,450 
459,000 
133,650 
Grand Total taken off in one day 
i 
1,538,550 
* 150 oysters are given to the bushel. 
Though there were dredgers in large numbers at work early 
in September, and also many during the entire summer, yet 
in order that any error may be under > rather than over esti- 
mation, I will consider the working season to be from the first 
of October to the first of May, and allow three days in each 
week for bad weather which would prevent dredging. That 
allowance will leave 120 working days, and in that time, by 
the preceding table, over 184,600,000 oysters would be re- 
moved from the beds in the Sounds, supposing them to supply 
the same number during the entire season. By table No. 2 
it will be seen that the average number of young to a bushel 
was 202. That number represents the number of young oys- 
ters attached to the shells of the full grown ones that were 
removed from the beds. That the estimate is not above what is 
actually the case I am certain from the immense numbers of 
young brought up by our own dredging operations. In mak- 
ing up the estimate twenty and thirty young were frequently 
found on one shell, and in one case fifty-four were counted. In 
estimating the total number removed from the beds in one day, 
