THE OYSTER-BARS OF THE WEST COAST OF FLORIDA: THEIR 
DEPLETION AND RESTORATION. 
By h. a. smeltz, a. m. 
One of the greatest benefits the State of Florida shall receive from the assembling 
of this Fishery Congress is the good influence on public opinion, and from the closing 
session of this assembly our people will not only know more about oysters and fishes 
and sponges, but they will realize that all these things are being exhausted, so far as 
the natural supply goes, and also realize that something must be dojie, and at once, in 
order to preserve these bounteous natural gifts so lavishly poured out by nature’s 
hand. The fact is, the natural oyster-bars are a magnificent inheritance that has cost 
us nothing, and we are not only using but abusing nature’s providence by the most 
extravagant wastefulness and improvidence, and it is only by the education of the 
masses along these lines that we may hope for success in the restoration of our 
depleted oyster-bars and sponge fisheries. 
In 1876 I came to the west coast of Florida from one of the largest oyster-growing 
sections in the world, Chesapeake Bay. I landed at Cedar Keys and at once became 
interested in the oyster-beds of Florida. After spending three weeks at Cedar Keys, 
I cruised southward, examining the most prominent oyster-beds, such as Crystal River 
Bay, the bars of the Cootie region, Clearwater Harbor, Point Pinellas, Hillsboro 
Bay, Old Tampa Bay, and on to a hamlet I found at the mouth of the Hillsboro 
River known as Tampa; thence I continued southward to the Alafia River, Big and 
Little Manatee, Sarasota, Boca Grande oyster-bars and 100 miles farther south, and 
on every hand I found the same condition — oysters, oysters everywhere. How little 
did I then think that in less than twenty-five years every one of these bars would be 
partially or totally depleted. On every hand I found these immense reefs and beds of 
oysters in such seemingly inexhaustible supplies that it frequently occurred to me 
that the great God of nature must have gone ahead of me and, with hands wide open, 
scattered right and left and out into the depths so far that I failed to find their limits. 
On the shores, as we landed from time to time, I found for about 150 miles, at short 
intervals, great mounds of oyster shells, often 25 feet high and 200 feet long, monuments 
of a magnificent oyster supply antedating all records and traditions, feeding races so 
far back that ethnology shakes her head and declares, “ I never knew them.” 
But I hear someone ask, “If this west coast of Florida be so thoroughly adapted 
to the growth of the oyster, how is it that these wonderful bars should all be either 
partially or totally depleted"!” Let us ask a second question : How is it that every 
oyster- growing section in the United States has had to meet and settle, in one way or 
another, this identical question of depleted oyster-bars? The answer in each and 
every case is: As long as any of the oyster-growing States were in the hands of a few 
Indians the< demand never approximated the natural supply, and even during the 
early occupation of the country by white men, with its sparsely settled communities, 
305 
F. C. B. 1897 20 
