NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
303 
profits of the day aud care not for the future, although if they did but know it they 
are more vitally and immediately interested than all others in the prevention of the 
ruin of the fisheries. In pursuance of this resolution the United States Fish Commis 
sion steamer Fish HawTc will, we are informed, immediately on the adjournment of this 
Congress proceed to make the investigation requested, and will report thereon to the 
next general assembly of the State, which meets in May of this year. Without tres- 
passing on or unduly anticipating the recommendations which will then be made, we 
venture to suggest consideration of the following poiuts: 
(1) The establishment by the State of a fishery commission to protect and regulate 
more effectively the oyster fisheries as well as the fin fish, both salt and fresh. 
(2) The establishment of a station by the United States Fish Commission on the 
Louisiana Gulf coast convenient to New Orleans as a distributing-point for the Gulf 
and interior States. 
(3) The closure for several years of those natural reefs and beds which are now 
on the point of exhaustion. 
(4) A prolongation of the ordinary close season from April 1 to October 1, as it 
has been shown that this interval of time is used for spawning, which is not confined 
to May, June, July, and August, as heretofore thought. During the six months of close 
season suggested the sale of oysters of any kind should be prohibited, whether from 
private beds or public reefs. Dealers, common carriers, and others should be punished 
for transporting or dealing in them during the close season, the same as under our 
game laws. The present law allows the sale from private beds, although ordinances 
of the city of New Orleans prohibit the sale of oysters of any description from May 1 to 
September 1 of every year. The allowance of sales from private beds during the closed 
season opens the door wide to indiscriminate selling and renders the law inoperative 
and incapable of execution. 
(5) Persons found with unculled oysters in their possession in any other place 
than on the banks should be severely punished. 
(6) Every incentive and inducement should be held out by legislation to encour- 
age the culture of the oyster and the use of natural reefs should be confined, as far 
as possible, to supplying seed, to be planted aud improved by cultivation. To that end 
liberal sales and leases for terms of years should be granted on the public lands and 
waters suitable for oyster culture. Riparian proprietors should be given and granted 
the right to plant and cultivate oysters to a certain distance on their water front and 
other means should be resorted to, in order to offer inducements and accord liberal 
treatment to capital to develop this enormously valuable industry, which has as yet 
hardly been touched. 
Perhaps obstructions to improvement are always to be expected from the ignorant. 
In New Jersey, where such extended closure of seed beds was similarly opposed (as 
it was in France and other countries), the commissioners tell us u all the opposition 
offered at the outset of this proposed system of protection has now disappeared, and 
those who were loudest in their protestations have acknowledged their unfounded 
prejudice and error. All of the seeding-grounds of Delaware Bay enjoy a rest of 9£ 
months each year. As a result the beds have increased in area and new beds are 
continually forming, and the supply is increasing to a wonderful extent.” If the 
legislature of Louisiana will follow the wise example of those older communities and 
