Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1906-10-19
FISH AND OYSTER NOTES

Monday, ''blustery" day, was the
beginning of the dredging season on
the Potomac.
State Board of Fisheries will meet in
Richmond October 30th to November
LIST to formulate annual report to the
Governor.
The Wharton Fisheries, of Sandy
Island, which has been shut down for
some time, expects TO be started as soon
as the frisky moss bunker makes his
appearance on our coast or in the Ches-
apeake Bay. Northampton Times.
The most of the menhaden fishing feet
is storm bound in Norfolk this week.
Some half dozen of the fleet that were
fishing up the coast Monday brought in
Jags of the largest and latest caught
this season. The first down run is in a
school ten miles long and there is one
following that still larger. Unless the
weather moderates this week the Vir-
ginia feet will get no more of them.
j. II. Johnson, who is one of the
corps of assistants in the Office of the
Auditor of Public Accounts, has in his
possession an oyster shell which is
literally covered with spat. He re-
ceived the curio a day or SO ago from
Tar Bay, on the ocean side of Accomac
county. Upon the shell are $50 spat,
which constitute numerous molluscous
family enough, indeed, to make half a
barrel of oysters.
1t is noteworthy that while the num-
Der of Baltimore Packing houses have
fallen off fifty per cent in the last ten
years, that Baltimore ships more
Smoked oysters today than ever before.
That city's trade has been cut off in the
Middle West by the oyster packers of
Mississippi and louisiana. Yet Bal
timore is the best adapted of any East
ern city for the shipping of open stock
over our country. The Chesapeak o
can never cease to be, even with all
the predatory methods of oyster de-
stroyers, the greatest oyster producing
area on the Atlantic coast, from Maine
10 Iexas. The Oysterman.
In regard to the quality of the oysters
in this State we need not take a back
seat as to shipments, as they compare
with the best from any section. and
are the best at this stage of the season
that we have ever known. But when
it comes to quantity, they are not there.
as oystermen on Nansemond Ridge
and other places can only get half the
number of bushels for their DAYS work
that they got last season at the same
time. We cannot look for any improve
ment along this line next season, as the
great rains and wind storms last sum-
mer created freshets in the rivers and
destroyed the spawn to such an extent
that there is very little ''set' found on
any part of the James river. That we
have the quantity of shuckable oysters
that we are using now is mainly through
the efforts of the new Board of Fisher
les, which last summer prevented thous-
ands of bushels from being stolen from
the natural beds. The majority of the
ooystermen everywhere say that the
natural beds are better watched and
protected than they have been formany
years, and it is no more than right that
all citizens of this Commonwealth who
are engaged in the oyster business, no
matter whether packers, planters or
tongers, should give our excellent Board
OF Fisheries their assistance at all times
to stop the depredations on the natural
beds during the closed season. -Norfolk
Corr. in Chincoteague Oysterman.