The new North-west. [volume] (Deer Lodge, Mont.) 1869-1897, 1882-03-10
CHESAPEAKE OYSTER BEDS.
Signs OF Exhaustion of the Once Limitless
Supply.
Ne,c York Sun.

| Aeu York Sun.
The natural oyster beds of the Chesape AXE
bay are perhaps the largest and most prolific
in The world. The tidal movements are so
gentle that the spat Is not scattered by cur
rents and the bottom Is suited to oyster
growth. There are places i'm the bay where
the oysters have accumulated, one upon the
other until they form great cones, rising to
the surface in fifty and sixty feet of water.
For many years the beds have been worked
without restriction, and the supply was once
| deemed practically illimitable. The sales in
Maryland alone amount TO 2,000,000,0o0
oysters year. The take In the lower waters
under Virginia jurisdiction is also very great,
and since the natural beds of Delaware bay,
N. j., and Long Island waters have been de-
! p'eted, the Chesapeake bay is the chief source
ofsuppiy OF seed oysters for the planted beds
In the neighborhood of Eastern cities.
The State of Maryland maintains little
navy whose business is to enforce the laws
regulating the oyster fisheries; but tthese laws
are not adapted for the preservation of the
oyster beds. The waters contiguous to the
city of Baltimore do not bear oysters, but the
city sends out into the bay large fleet of
boats, which drag the oyster beds with heavy
iron scoops. The oystermen who supply the
local demand along the bay shore take the
oysters by means of long tongs worked from
small boats. County interests predominant
in the Legislature, and the endeayor is made
to reserve to every county the use of choice
beds in waters contiguous to it. The bay is
mapped with imaginary boundary lines, the
transgression of which II is the duty of the
oyster police to prevent. As matter OF fact,
most of the take of the oyster dredgers is
from grounds prohibited to them. Every
season several dredgers are killed or wound
ed, the jsils along the bay shore are filled
with captured offenders, and sometimes there
are conflicts between tongmen and dredgers
approaching the proportions of battle.
Meanwhile no effort has been made to regu-
late the character of the dredging itself or
the extent to which the beds may be worked
further than that there is prohibition of
oyster dredging during the summer months,
which is not well enforced.
Under these circumstances it is not sur
prising 10 hear that signs of depletion are ap-
pearing. Lieutenant Francis Winslow, u.
S. n, who made a special study of the SUBJ
iect, has written to the Baltimore Sun giving
some facts on the matter. Time was when
the Tangier and Pocomoke sounds were SO
packed with oysters that the supply seemed
limitless. Now these beds are almost ex>
hausted. The oyster-bearing areas Of the
Chesapeake are so vast that the aggregate
take has not diminished, but the work has
become harder and more uncertain of result.
Boats have to range widely for small takes
where once the dredge had but TO be let down
In order to come up full. The present con-
dition of affairs plainly indicates the ap-
preaching exhaustion of the beds.
Lieutenant Wnslow has collected data
showing that there have been in the past rich
oyster beds along the coast of New England
which have become extinct. Oysters an
cient.y abounded in many places in the wa
ters Of Northern Europe, where few or none
are vet, however, TAR fruH srAvfn~~fo''s ----"-
! iudicious measures for their protection Will
permanently maintain this famous source OF
supply.