Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1890-01-12
OYSTERS & REVENUE.
-, ,uooaTANT MATTER ABLY Dis
-" r,,ssEp BY Nh. r. s. THOMAS.
,~.n ~ Our Oyster-Beds Actually Trans
planted to and in Northern
Waters.
=, %, Eai,m of Me Dispaich:

n.,.,act Of taxation and new source OF
s ssrenue IS my apology for this communica-
ton. %. c,,,trrs ora -. n-or.,
inc a subject that is very old and, if
.,on, ,.aradox be excused, is still very new.
'ng a p Lucrin and Lake Ayem, on tho
Let IL Compania, Italy, are both very
co nil tnown to ancient and to modern his
WEI. and poetry. The steep mountain
.oas If Ayernus. its tall. thick, immense
sluodJ ~ lie dense shade, its baneful odors,
,,oJa Il 40 dismal to the ancients that it was
nalIsd 1.-THE gate to he'll" the place where
i iIlvsses Is said to have made his descent to
az lever regions, and fdcihs es, descenSus
arerni has passed into one of the pro-
.,orhs of the world. Lake Lucrin was SO
oiose 10 10 that Agrippa connected them with
a canal and built there the famous Julian
Uarhor in which. in anticipation of his
aarce contest with Sextus Pompeius, he
naxSaayc;sed his vessels and trained his sea-
rSa,--a training and an exercise that
vowed decisive at Mylae and Nawlochus.
When he drove that able but conceited and
seIf-styled "son of Neptune" back TO
Asia. In this very locality Sergius Orator,
a Roman Knight, cultivated oysters just
% they are to-day cultivated in tho most
enligbtened localities with the very best
methods now known to science and TO art.
Pl;nv describes two funereal vases, one
found in Porville and the other in the
environs of Rome that show from the
verv inscriptions upon them that the
science of the propagation of oysters was
known and practiced in Italy as early as
the time of Augustus.
Like MANY other things once Familiarity
known this knowledge passed from the
mamorv of man. and long ages afterwards
The world was startled nv the theories and
the enthusiasm of q Cote. who in 1856, '57,
and ,58 induced that intelligent and enter
prising monarch Louis Napoleon TO UNDER
take the replenishing of French waters
with the delicious bivalye that ignorance
and rapacity Lad driven from them ana
well-uigh extirpated.
After years of devoted labors Coste died,
hut De Bon and Bonchon- Brandely took
mn the work where he had laid it down
and carried it on 10 brilliant success. and
today the Bay of st. Brenc. the basin
of the Archacon, of Cancalle. and of Gran
Vile. Array Marennos and Oleron are ia
nous the world over IN this history OF
oyster-culture.
N0bius of Germany brought to the sub
iect his patience and great learning and to-
day Holland, Belgium, and Germany. are
roaming the rewards of his science and OF
his experiments.
Huxley and DR.. Francis Day took up the
same subject in England; and the United
States more deeply interested 10 the mat
ter than any other. or than all other ma
tions combined, catching the contagion OF
this revival of an old and forgotten SUBJ
iect-a lost art-could not ignore the ques-
ton, and has contributed to it the spion-
did results found in the reports and works
OF s. +. Baird G. Brown Goode, Francis
Winslow. James Macdonald, Ernest lnger-
soil. and facie princcps W. X. Brooks, the
distinguished professor of morphology in
the Johns Hopkins University OF Mary
land.
The discussion of such an exceedingly in
teresting and pecuniarlly important SUD-
iect could not proceed without arresting
the attention of some Of the States OF this
country that were vitality concerned in
the growth, in the protection, and IN the
propagation of the oyster.
The States to the north OF Maryland and
Virginia not having natural beds either as
rich or as extensive as our own, were the
first to experience an absolute deStrnc-
ton Of many and an almost total deple-
ton Of others of their beds. SO Connec-
ticut, New York. Rhode Island. Della;
ware. and Massachusetts, began to assam
the oyster-beds of Maryland and Of Viz
ginia as early as 1925, and the depreda--
lions increased year by year up, to and
since the war. The extent of these de-
predations NAV be measured by the fact
that Ingersoll reports that in single year
since the war (in 1879 $4,000 bushels or
oysters were carried from the waters OF
the Chesapeake alone to the waters or
those northern States. Add TO these the
many thousands upon thousands Of bush
els that were carried to the same places
from the James, the York, the Kappa
hammock. the Elizabeth, the Nansemond,
and elsewhere, and the aggregate will be
marvellous and totally surprising to those
who have not given to the subject the at
tent on and the thought that its vast i'm
portance demands.
The great bulk of the oysters carried
North were what is known among oyster
men las plants"-that is, oysters too
small for market at the time they are
caught, and SO are planted until they are
salable. To catch them the oyster-bed
is ruthlesslv seized upon by the foreign
and domestic dredger and tongman and
sold in the rough" for from three to five
cents per bushel. This has been done so
long, so continuously, and to such an
enormous extent that a growing scarcity
has enhanced the price to 20 and 20 per
cent. per bushel. Under this rough ma
nipulation many of our oyster-beds have
been actually transplanted to and in the
northern waters, and our citizens, reckless
in the prodigality of their wealth, have
been scattering it as if it were inexhausti-
BILE and congratulating themselves upon
the splendid exploit of killing the goose
that laid the egg.
But those States that were shrewdly
profting by our recklessness and igno-
rance knew what they were about, and to-
day Connecticut is the leading oyster State
in the United State and ships thousands
upon thousands of barrels of oysters to
San Francisco and Europe, and virginia
and Maryland, that ought to have this
trade, that have furnished almost gratis
this immense wealth to northern States,
have nothing more dignifed and important
to do than TO get up ridiculous tisticuh
over the Hog Island flats. Neighboring
and friendly States that ought in this mat
ter TO lead the world in thought, in law,
and III trade are quarrelling over an inch
of ground and are laughed at by alien and
hostile communities that have pilfered
from both thousands upon thousands OF
acres.
Those northern States mentioned, Con-
necticut far in the lead-"Eclipse first and
the rest nowheren- have been struggling
and stumbling for years to policy on the
oyster question. In about 1S49 some OF
their citizens began to plant and to propa-
gate oysters. The first steps were very
slow. The famous natural bed OF Damarls-
Gotta, on the coast OF Maine, with Its
5000 900 OF cubic feet of shells, was proof
positive as Holy Writ that a natural bed
! could beexhausted. till not the sign or the
vestige of an oyster could be found in
miles and miles of it. So they began to
throw some safeguard over theirs. not yet
in the extinct condition of the Damaris-
Gotta, and thousands of others the world
over of less note. and to save them for
"seed" aud "mother" oysters on these
natural and other artificial beds. But the
progress was slow. for they had TO combat
their own ignorance. and the rank preiu-
dice that everywhere abounds-in Italy,
in France. in Germany, in England. and in
ell of the United States. But under the
impetus of the discussion of Coste and of
De Bon, of Mobius. and of Franche, of
Goode. Winslow. Baird. and of Brooks, and
of the food of light that they threw upon
the subject, Connecticut, still in the lead,
about 1880 entered upon a wise oyster le-
gislation and policy. She created she'll
fish commission, and had her natural beds
and her land suitable for oyster propaga-
ton ascertained and defined. New York
has also shell-fish commission. SO has
New Jersey and perhaps Rhode Island.
There are several theories.
| Rhode Island leases her oyster-ground at
AZ O. l..