218 
'I'HE BOOK OF FISHES 
Photograph from Dr. Hugh M. Smith 
OYSTERS GROWING ON AN OLD LANTERN 
The tendency of the oyster to attach itself to any 
convenient object has been made use of by the oyster 
culturist from time immemorial. The Romans cultivated 
the oyster, particularly at Lake Avernus, and the tra¬ 
ditional method of culture is still practiced today at Lago 
Fusaro, near Naples. 
three-fourths million bushels, valued 
at $4,460,000, or 35 per cent of the 
quantity and 22 per cent of the 
value of the entire oyster crop of the 
United States for 1920. 
While the oyster yield of Chesa¬ 
peake Bay and tributaries in all 
recent years has been considerably 
less than formerly, nevertheless the 
industry today is in a healthier 
condition than ever before. This 
apparently paradoxical statement is 
explained by the fact that whereas 
in earlier years a very large pro¬ 
portion of the product was obtained 
from public beds, whose depletion 
had already begun and whose ulti¬ 
mate destruction was inevitable, now 
an annually increasing proportion 
of the oyster output is taken from 
grounds under private control and 
represents an actual aquicultural crop. 
In Virginia about 50 per cent of 
the value of the State’s oyster in¬ 
dustry is contributed by grounds 
under cultivation, and in Maryland 
an increasingly large proportion is 
from private beds—a condition which 
25 years ago would have been re¬ 
garded as almost impossible, for at 
that time these States were firmly 
committed to the policy of making 
their oyster industry depend on 
public or natural beds and restric¬ 
tive measures, and discouraged the 
general inauguration of oyster plant¬ 
ing on public oyster grounds. 
OYSTER CULTURE IN THE UNITED 
of oysters in New York brings the oyster- 
man $1.30 while a bushel in Maryland 
brings 50 cents and a bushel in Louisiana 
44 cents. 
CHESAPEAKE BAY IS THE WORLd’s 
GREATEST OYSTER GROUND 
The body of water which produces 
more oysters than any other body of 
water in the United States or, in fact, in 
the whole world, is Chesapeake Bay. The 
latest statistics of the oyster industry 
show the preponderating importance of 
the bay: an output of over seven and 
This policy was in strong contrast 
with that in the next most impor¬ 
tant oyster-producing region, name¬ 
ly, Long Island Sound, where the 
States of New York and Connecticut 
had cut loose from the old fetish of the 
sanctity of public oyster grounds, had 
leased or sold those grounds for planting 
purposes, and had assumed the front 
rank, although their natural advantages 
for oyster growing were much inferior to 
those in Chesapeake Bay. 
The rank early attained by the United 
States in the oyster industry was due to 
the great area of the oyster-beds; but 
the maintenance of that rank depends on 
the general adoption of oyster culture as 
the only certain means of insuring a 
