NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
223 
berried female, hatching them, and liberating the young larva? into the sea. Nature 
does not confer any special favors upon the young lobster thus brought into the world. 
It is not a case of making two blades of grass grow where but one would have grown 
before. A delicate, helpless organism, one-fifth of an inch long, it must contend alone 
with the forces of the world into which it is cast, the ocean, on. the surface of which 
it is destroyed by millions through the indiscriminate forces of nature — the tempest, 
the tide, the oceau current, and wave-beaten shore — and we must add to this the 
destruction wrought by surface- feeding animals. 
With the liberal allowance of the survival of 2 individuals out of every 10,000 
hatched, we would have to hatch 1,000,000 eggs to produce 200 adults, 100,000,000 to 
get 20,000, and 1,000,000,000 to obtain 200,000 adult animals. To raise 1,000,000 
lobsters would involve the hatching of 5,000,000,000 eggs. Since hundreds of 
thousands of adult lobsters are captured every month during the best of the season, it 
is evident that the annual supply can not be appreciably affected by this method 
unless conducted upon an altogether impracticable scale. 
The greatest number of lobsters artificially hatched and liberated in a single year 
in Newfoundland, Canada, and the United States, according to the official reports 
for 1894, was 702,288,000. 1 This number of young at the rate of survival of 1 in 
5,000 would yield 140,457 adults, while in a single year (1892) 68,000,000 lobsters have 
been captured in Canada alone. In order to put an equivalent number of lobsters 
back to make good this loss, not half or three quarters of a billion should have been 
hatched, but 340,000,000,000, or something less than 500 times as many as were actually 
liberated. In this case man has attempted by working on a small scale to stem the 
tide of destruction, which nature working on such a vastly greater scale has been 
unable to do. 
The conclusion which we reach . is that too much has been expected from the 
present method of the artificial propagation of the lobster, and that it is totally 
inadequate to accomplish the task of restocking the depleted waters. 
It may properly be asked of one who makes criticisms to suggest remedies, 
although he is not wholly responsible for the performance of this task. The following 
suggestions without further discussion seem to me to have a logical basis : 
(1) That the coasts of those States in which the lobster fishery is of sufficient 
importance be divided, after careful consideration, into a number of well-marked 
areas, and that fishing for this animal be closed in each alternate section for a period 
of five years; at the end of this time the open areas to be closed, and so on alternately. 
(2) That the legal limit be fixed at 10£ inches for all purposes and under all 
conditions. 
(3) That all traps be registered and marked, and that their construction be regu- 
lated by law so that the space between the two lower slats be sufficient to allow free 
passage to all lobsters under 10| inches in length. 
1 Tbe number of young lobsters batched and liberated on the Atlantic coast since 1893 is given 
by the official reports as follows : 
Fiscal year. 
United States. 
Canada. 
Newfoundland. 
1893 
8,8.18, 000 
78, 398, 000 
72, 253, 000 
97, 079, 000 
115, 606, 000 
153, 600, 000 
160,000,000 
168,200,000 
100, 000, 000 
517, 353, 000 
463, 890, 000 
174, 840, 000 
1894 
1895 
1896 
1897 
