306 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
the demands were insignificant, and the oyster-bars increased and multiplied; but 
when the tide of immigration set in, and the sparsely settled communities became 
thriving villages, and mere hamlets became splendid cities, and in the place of the 
Indian’s canoe and the early settler’s bateau, came the sloops, schooners, steamers, 
railroads, and even the ocean steamers, demanding these oysters to distribute them to 
the east, west, north, and south, to say nothing of the increased home demand — when 
we consider all these constantly increasing demands, we see very readily that the answer 
to the question is simply that the demand is an hundredfold in excess of the natural 
supply, and the artificial supply amounts to nothing, and never will amount to anything, 
in Florida, as it never has amounted to anything in any other State, until by proper 
legislation oyster-raising is put on a business basis, the State giving every citizen who 
wishes to engage in the oyster business the same opportunities, the same rights, and 
the same protection she gives her citizens to conduct any other legitimate business. 
As matters stand to-day in Florida, the oyster interests (I mean their protection 
and propagation) are everybody’s interest, and on the west coast of Florida there are 
thousands of acres of land covered with water that are more valuable for food 
production than the best hummock lands, and yet neither the State nor its citizens 
get one farthing’s benefit from them, whereas, by proper legislation, these oyster 
lands now lying idle could be sold or leased and put under the head of taxable 
property, and thus immensely increase the revenues of the State. Then, and not till 
then, will public opinion respect the property a man has in oyster-beds. 
On this west coast of Florida we have all of the natural conditions — climatic, 
geographic, and hydrographic — and the extent of territory to establish an immense 
oyster industry, which would pay into the treasury of the State such revenues as 
would appreciably reduce all other taxes, and in this way I believe public opinion can 
most readily and most speedily be educated on the oyster question. Show a man 
(and the same is true of a State) that you can and will make money for him, and 
immediately you enlist his interest and his sympathy, when all your moralizing and 
sentimentality fall flat as a flounder. 
But let us come to the practical and tangible part of the subject. Here I have 
hundreds of specimens of oysters brought from these partially depleted beds of the 
west coast, by which I wish not only to show the wonderful processes of nature in 
adapting itself to the various circumstances and often peculiar conditions under 
which the eggs attach themselves to any suitable object they may find in their 
wanderings, but also to demonstrate that there are still on many of these beds enough 
oysters left to furnish seed for their restoration by proper protection and timely aid, 
either by the State or its citizens individually. 
In order to understand the subject before us more thoroughly, let us look at the 
oyster himself. Here we have an animal living in a limestone house which he builds 
for himself. He begins this house-building when he is four days old, and he continues 
to build and, as necessity requires, to repair this house as long as he lives. In the 
ages past the oyster was a swimming animal, as he now is for the short period of from 
five to ten days. At this period his two shells are equal ; but after the period of attach- 
ment, which is by the left shell, the lower shell becomes cup-shaped and the right or 
upper shell becomes the lid. 
The oyster makes his shell out of the gummy secretion of his mantle, which catches 
and fixes the lime of the sea water by some special process not yet thoroughly under- 
stood, thus creating a substance out of which he not only builds his shell, but repairs 
