206 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
the oyster industry is by far the principal means of support. This does not include the 
city of Baltimore with its extensive dredging, transporting, and marketing interests, 
giving direct employment to 11,000 persons and support to many times that number. 
The dependence of a large proportion of the citizens of Maryland upon this fishery 
for a livelihood, and the immense resources it furnishes for the profitable employment 
of capital and labor, demand that the fullest inquiry be made into its needs and 
conditions, and should cause everyone interested either in the welfare of Maryland 
or in the fisheries of America to be extremely solicitous that no permanent injury 
to it should be permitted and that every available means be utilized toward main- 
taining and, if practicable, increasing the productive capacity. Neither is the interest 
in this industry limited to the State of Maryland, for nearly every locality in America 
is to some extent dependent for the abundance and cheapness of its oyster supply 
on the product of the Chesapeake, and this interest is also shared by the foreign 
consumer of the canned product. 
In every region of the world where the oyster industry has assumed any commer- 
cial importance it has passed, or is apparently passing, through the following four 
stages : First, the natural reefs in their primitive condition and furnishing the entire 
supply of oysters ; second, those reefs somewhat depleted and producing small oysters, 
many of which are transplanted to private grounds and under individual protection 
permitted to mature; third, the public beds so far depleted that the supply available 
is very irregular and uncertain and consists almost entirely of small oysters which are 
transplanted to private areas; fourth, the entire dependence of the industry on areas 
of ground under individual ownership or protection. 
In Europe the greater number of the oyster -producing localities are in the con- 
dition of the fourth stage. In America, with apparently a more hardy oyster, the 
natural advantages greater, and the fisheries not so long continued, the industry still 
depends largely on the public reefs. But were it not for the supply of seed oysters 
obtained from more southern waters all those States north of Connecticut would be 
practically in the condition of the fourth stage, the public reefs in that region being 
almost totally destroyed. Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware, while 
obtaining large quantities of small oysters from the Chesapeake and other localities, 
are rapidly passing from the third to the fourth condition. The oyster industry of 
Chesapeake Bay, both in Maryland and Virginia, is in the second stage, but the history 
of the fishery in other States and countries excites grave fears as to its long continuance 
in this condition. 
In Maryland the oyster industry is at present almost totally dependent on the 
public reefs, and there are two great interests in the fishery which, for nearly a century, 
have been antagonistic to each other, viz, the tongmen and the dredgers with their 
allies the scrapemen, and these three unitedly wage common war on the planters. The 
dispute between the tongmen and dredgers is of economic origin, being due to the 
improved machinery of the latter surpassing that of their rivals. The common objec- 
tion to the planters is founded in the belief that their operations constitute an 
encroachment upon the public customs, and that the free fishery on the public reefs 
may thereby be seriously restricted. These class feelings have had much to do with 
preventing a satisfactory understanding of the fishery and its regulation in a manner 
acceptable to the State at large. 
In studying this fishery in Maryland and comparing its needs and conditions 
