Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1889-09-14
odr oyster Beds.

cE1s
1.-THE oyster beds are rapidly decreas
ing lnsour Rivers and Bay and al.
though the oyster industry has been
and is now immense yet it cannot
continue very long," These were in
pregnant words uttered by one who
has thorough knowledge of the oys-
ter beds, and the growth and habits of
the oyster and.has made the matter a
subject of long and careful study; and
he bears testimony to fact to which
public attention has been more than
once called and for which remedy
must be found. Millions of bushels
OF oysters are annually taken from
the Chesapeake Bay and eaten, trans
planted to foreign waters or canned
and shipped away. Vessels and tools
of every kind and character have been
employed TO take oysters from their
native beds and at no time in the year
except the summer months are the
bivalges safe from the rapacity of man.
The tongers pick them up, what is
left Of them, on the bars, and the
dredgers sweep up and down day and
night, year in and year out, while fish
and crabs destroy aud devour the
spawn and the refuse Of the cities
poison and. kill them until the con-
sumption is greater than their natural
increase, and year by year finds them
closer and closer to extinction.
1t is true we have laws and an oys-
ter police force to protect them and
they do, so as far as they are able.
The time was not many years when a
large portion of the population Of our
State earned comfortable living by
clustering upon the bars with tongs.
They were an independent class COM
posed Of industrious men who owned
or hired small boats and oystered up
on their own hook. On many favor
ite points could frequently be seen
whole fleets of their little boats, ca
noes and skiffs, each with its crew Of
two-a man handling the tongs and
lifting up the oysters, while boy or
partner culled that is, knocked off the
young or small oysters attached to the
clumps brought up and throwing such
small ones back into the water to-
grow for future crop while ouly the
choicest ones were retained for mar
ket. These were hardy men and
earned a comfortable living for them
selves and families. But they are grad
ually disappearing. Despite the war
they waged with the dredgers the Sc
we're penalties enacted against dredg-
ing in shallow water and the vigilance
and vigor with which the county au-
thorities inflicted the penalty and de-
spite the diligence of an oyster police
feet, the dredgers have done their
work until the oyster fields are being
fast depopulated and the favorite bars
where the tongmen worked have been
swept clean.
Back and forth the dredges have
been drawn sweeping the bars and
leaving them barren, dredging the
deep water and tearing open with the
ruthless teeth the feeding oysters.
burying others in-the mud to die and
scrapingup the rest from the mann
moth moss back to The young bulb
with its shell hardly formed. The.
tonglnen are few to what they once
were-a large and thrifty people, part
ofahe population Of every town and
village along our bay and river shores,
and TIE cnilers are scarcer still, for
the hungry tongmen now - Is
the small oysters for seed for some
distant bed because he cannot afford
to throw them back to their native
element. Thus it is that our oysters
are disappearing aud there is no tell
ing how long this great and valuable
industry viii continue, we know Of
what great value it is to this city and
county. Its failure would be cal
amity to thousands in other parts of
the State to whom it furnishes en-
ployment. Something must be done
10 arrest the destruction clearly going
on. It would be better that the busi-
ness be suspended or restricted tenn
porarilv than that it should be per-
lnanently destroyed. The coming
fsoneval ssamhlv mnsf. noeifixplv.