THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF MARYLAND. 
263 
Some of these transporting vessels go around Cape Charles, and the remaining 
pass through the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. No reliable data are available to 
show the extent of the trade through the u capes,” but by courtesy of Mr. T. J. Cleaver, 
collector of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal Company, I am enabled to present 
the following tabular statement, exhibiting for a period of years the quantity of oysters 
passing through that canal : 
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, east-bound shipments. 
Year. 
Bushels. 
Year. 
Bushels. 
1880 
939, 600 
485, 385 
650, 100 
552, 227 
1890 
60, 340 
129, 660 
228, 055 
252, 423 
1881 
1891 
1882 
1892 
1883 
1893 
About one half of these oysters pass through the canal during the last four or five 
weeks of the spring fishing. While a few of them go at once into the food markets, 
by far the greater portion are planted on the private grounds in Delaware Bay. 
Their average cost in Maryland probably does not exceed 25 cents per bushel, and at 
times it is very much lower than that, many vessels loading at 15 and 20 cents per 
bushel. After remaining planted in the Delaware Bay one or two years they are 
marketed at 75 cents to $1 per bushel. As oysters can not be safely transplanted 
during cold weather their movement is delayed until spring, and the date of the 
beginning of the close season determines largely the quantity transported for planting, 
this being very much greater before the adoption of the close season on tonging than 
at present. 
Capt. Samuel M. Travers, formerly commander of the fishery force, submits the 
following as an exhibit of the quantity of oysters shipped North for planting purposes 
during the spring of 1879: 
Shipped from — 
Bushels. 
Tangier Sound and tributaries 
353, 750 
125, 000 
125, 000 
375. 000 
62, 500 
250. 000 
112, 500 
150, 000 
625, 000 
Nanticoke River and Fishing Bay 
Little Choptank River 
Great Choptank River 
Eastern Bay 
Chester River 
Anne Arundel shore 
Patuxent River and tributaries 
Potomac River and tributaries 
Total 
2, 178, 750 
The average price paid is reported by him to have been 7 cents per bushel. 
In 1880 the beginning of the close season was changed to April 15 so as to 
restrict this trade, with the result of reducing it during the ensuing season to about 
1,000,000 bushels. One of the chief objects of the present close time in the spring is 
the restriction it places upon this transporting of seed oysters from the State. 
