NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
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nite results have not yet been reached. It may be stated, in passing, that these 
experiments have nothing in common with the pernicious process of plumping through 
the osmotic influences of fresh or brackish water. 
ENEMIES. 
The Gulf coast is fortunate in its comparative immunity from enemies of the oyster. 
Two of the most destructive inhabitants of oyster-beds in the North, the starfish 
and drill, are practically harmless in the South, and to those familiar with the vast 
amount of money and energy annually expended in protecting the beds of Long Island 
this fact is very significant. In six years the vessels of one deep-water planter caught 
nearly 10,000 bushels of starfish, and another in a single year is said to have expended 
$90,000 in protecting his beds from the same pest. There are, however, certain 
enemies on the Gulf coast which do more or less harm. The drum fisli is apparently 
more destructive than in the North, and the sheepshead is said to also do considerable 
harm. Should either of these fish prove troublesome it would be quite feasible, as has 
been demonstrated on the Pacific coast, to protect many of the planted beds by 
stockades or fences. The economic practicability of the plan, however, would be 
conditioned by the price of oysters and the location of the beds which it is sought 
to protect. The conch and a somewhat allied gasteropod, the crown shell, known to 
naturalists as Melongena corona , are said to cause more or less harm to oysters in the 
Gulf. Mr. Joseph Wilcox, of Philadelphia, says in regard to the latter that they are 
able to insert their long tongues or proboscides between the valves of the oyster and 
then leisurely destroy it. He further says that upon one occasion he picked up on 
the west coast of Florida a cluster of oysters with 20 Melongenas attached. Owing to 
the comparatively large size of these forms it is probable that by exercising care to 
destroy the animals and their egg capsules whenever found much could be done toward 
securing some immunity from their inroads. 
Summing up, we find that the Gulf coast possesses both advantageous and dis- 
advantageous features from the oyster- grower’s point of view. The advantages 
are principally biological; the disadvantages, economical. The physical conditions 
are mainly favorable, but occasionally disastrous. The temperature and density are 
both suitable over a large part of the region, enemies are comparatively few, food is 
abundant, and the growth and recuperation of the beds rapid; labor is cheap and the 
weather is less likely to interfere with operations than in the North, where oystermen 
are often compelled to work in intense cold and on boisterous seas. The disadvantages 
have principally to do with the freshets and crevasses which at certain seasons are 
liable to lower the density and deposit sediment upon the oysters, the occasional 
severe storms and tidal wav<s which tear up and destroy the beds, and finally the 
distance from the centers of population and the principal markets of the country. 
LEGISLATION AND ITS ENFORCEMENT. 
In most of the maritime States the statute books are burdened with lengthy oyster 
laws, and a large part of the time and energy of the legislative bodies are occupied in 
the discussion of these laws and their enforcement. In all of these laws and in most 
of the discussions the close season is an important factor by which it is hoped that the 
natural beds may be preserved from destruction. It is invaiiably designed to prevent 
the capture of the oyster during the breeding season on the hypothesis that when 
