Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-02-24

'seS III H HopSlts G of sGnns
have declared it
practicable to restore the industry and
even to make it vastly more profitable than
1t has ever been hitherto. The key of the
problem is oyster culture.
During the last fifty-six years, since the
establishment of packing houses the Ches-
apeake has produced 400, Oo0, 600 bushels of
oysters. This has been merely a wild crop
furnished by nature, without any aid from
man. 1t compares with what might be OBJ
tanned from the same waters in about the
same way that nuts and berries which arc
gathered in forests and swamps compare
with the harvest from cultivated fields and
orchards
The opportunities for rearing oysters by
aitifice in the Chesapeake are unparalleled
in any other part of the world. in foreign
countries grounds of much less value have,
by cultivation, been made to yield the hi
waves AT a rate per acre which, on the
beds of Maryland, would carry the annual
harvest far beyond the sum total of all the
oysters ever used by the packers of that
state and Virginia.
The time will surely come when the har-
vest of each year will be fully equal to the
total harvest of the last fifty years, and
Will be obtained without depicting the beds
10 bring the whole of the bay under thor
ougn cultivation will require many years,
and will cost a great sum of money; but
the expense and labor involved will be
much less than are required in raising crops
on an equal area of land above water
chesapeake bay is one of the richest ag-
r1cultural regions of the earth The fer
tlhty OF its bottom can be compared only
with that of the valleys OF the Nile and the
GanSes and other great rivers. But it is
adapted for producing only one crep,-the
oyster. This mollusl, it must be reme:n-
tered, lives on vegetable food, as. do all
animals directly or indirectly Ii there
We're no plants, all animals would starye at
once.
All human food is vegetable in it's origin
Whether eaten in the shape of plants or as
beer mutton and eggs. In the sea the blue
Esh preys on smaller fishes; many of these
on smaller ones; these, in turn, upon minute
crustaceans; these Gu still smaller crea-
lures; and these last pasture On the micro
SCOPE plants which swarm at the surface
of the ocean. All animals on land and va
ter depend for their existence on vegetable
food.
Food for Ocean Life.
To the superficial observer the vegetation
or the sea appears to he very scanty and
eSct2 pit for the fringe OF sea weeds along the
shore the ocean seems, So far rs plant life
is concerned. to be Il barren desert But
the microscope shows that the surface
swarms with minute plants most of Them
OF strange forms. having nothing in COM
mon with the trees and herbs and grasses
of the land except the power to change
mineral matter into food that is fit for
animals.
Most OF these plants are SO small as to be
invisible to the unaided eye, and, even when
they are gathered together IN . mass. 1t
looks Ike Shiny, c:sco!ored water. They
Seem too Insignificant 10 play any impCrt-
AIT part in the economy OF nature. but the
great monsters of the deep, beside which
the elephant and the OK and the elk are
small animals, owe their existence to these
microscopic plants. Their vegetatiye power
Is wonderful past all expression. Among
land plants corn, which yields seed about a
hundrcdfold in a single season. is the en-
blenl of fertility. but it can be shown that a
single marine plant very much smaller than
a grain of mustard seed would fill the whole
ocean solid in less than week, If all of its
descendants were to live.
AS countless minute animals are constant
" peeturing upon them the multiplication
of these plants is kept in check. bat in
calm weather il is no rare thing to find
great tracts of wafer many miles IN extent
packed so fun Of them that the whole sur
face is converted into Shiny mass, which
breaks the waves and snooths the surface
like oil. The so-called black water of the
Arctic and Antartic oceans consists of a
mass of these plants crowded together until
the seas are d.scolored by them.
Through these seas OF black water roam
the right whales. the largest animals on
earth, gulping at each mouthfu, hundreds OF
gallons Of the little ncollusks and crusta-
cesEs which feed on the plants. In tropical
seas ships sometimes sail for days through
great floating islands of this surface vese-
tation, and the Red sea owes its name to
the co.or3tion of its water by svar-r,s of
microscopic plants which are of a reddish
tinge. 1t has been sCr:nsed that man may
ut some future time assert his dominion
over the fishes of the sea- sending out focks
to pasture and fatten upon the vegetable
life of the ocean and to make its vast
weolth of food available.
Chesapeake bay receives the drainage of
more than 100000" acres of fertile land
the most valuable part of the soil from
which Is received eventually in the bosom
of its quiet waters. There it is deposited
all over the bottom in the form of fine black
sediment, known as oyster mud This is
just as valuable to man and as fl. to nour-
ish plants as the mud which settles every
year on the wheat fields and rice fields of
Egypt. 1t is natural fertilizer and il is
so rich in organic matter that il putriles
IN lew hours when exposed to the sun.
LuxuriaEt Vegetation.
In the shallow waters of the bay under
the influence of warm sunlight. this mud
produces a most luxuriant vegetation but
with few exceptions the plants which grow
from it are microscopic and invisible They
are not confined like land plants to the sur
face of the soil, their food being difrused in
solution through the whole body of the
water. AS they are bathed on all sides by
nourishment, they do not have to go
through the slow process of sucking it I'D
through roots and stems, and they grow
and multiply at a rate which has no parallel
in the land plants. In fact, they would
quickly choke up the whole bay IL they
were not held in check by countless minute
animals which feast upon them
The oyster is an animal especially adapt-
ed for living in such waters and for gather
ing up these microscopic plants and turning
them into food for man. Microscopic ami
mails also contribute to it's diet. These are
rather abundant in all water though not so
much so as most people imagine. When
professional exhibitor shows you under the
microscope what he calls a drop of pure
water, it is nothing of the sort 1t is either
collection made by filtering several bar
rels of water, or else ii is a drop squeezed
from piece of decayed moss or from some
other substance in which such small organ
isms have lived and multiplied
The oyster. by the way. is far more
complicated animal than is popularity i'm
agned 1t has a heart which pumps blood
through the vessels of its body. also a liver
gills for breathing, an intestinal canal. a
stomach and a system of nerves with a
center which is to all intents and PURPOSES