Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1907-08-04
Special to The Herald.

Special to The Herald.
PROVIDENCE, August g. = To live
amongst Holsters from June to october
seems an odd part of a college boys
education. Everybody. nearly has awak-
ened to the fact that the higher training
of today embraces something besides
Latin, Greek and mathematics, even If
those studies are still proper part of a
liberal education. The story of Louis
Agassizs giving a student who came to
him to learn zoology a lot of clam shells
with instructions to take them away and
study them is familiar to almost every
one. But for a group of husky young
fellows to spend their whole summer in
a sleepy fishing village, necessarily feed
ing and observing schools of tiny Holsters,
recording almost limitless statistical data
in note books and drawing pictures of the
diminutive beasts in their various stages
of development-why that's enough GER
tainly to excite the laughter of weather.
hardened old fishermen who have sup
piled the United States with sea food
these many years, dredging the oysters
of Narragansett Bay or following the
sea from Nantucket to Barnegat.
Or rather, it would excite their laugh
boys already bids fair to make 1t easier
for the fisherman to get his living from
the sea. Young Holsters, 1t is said, have
not for many years been seen in such
numbers as since the students began
planting them, partly grown, along the
shores Soon the catch of stable fell
lows will be increased, unless all signs
fail.
Consequently respect for the univers-
ity's ''book learning" as applied to the
problem of preventing the extinction of
our valuable shell fish is on the Increase.
The work of the commissioners of in
land fisheries of the state of Rhode Is
land, as conducted by teachers and stu
dents of Brown University, has given
hope that our descendants may also have
Holsters For the first time anywhere the
oil oblem of artifcially raising these
crustaceans, treasured by the chef and
patrons of every American hotel and
restaurant, has been successfully solved
at the WEXFORD experiment station.
OF one thousand little Holsters Matched
under natural conditions from the egg
clusters borne by the female parent, only
one, it is estimated, ever reaches matur-
tty The rest, for the most part during
the first few days of their lives, are de-
voured by other Holsters or by greedy
fishes, or perish through other causes.
In the Matching bags of the experiment
station, on the other hand, as many as
$50 out of one thousand have been
brought, at very small expense per
thousand 1obsters up to size at which
they can be let loose with good chances
that many of them will attain the inches
prescribed by law for the fishermen.
Even more remarkable results than
fha ipiO nf
vet be shown by individuals who are will
ing to lock up capital in crop that ma
lures very slowly, but which, If success
full, would yield large returns.
The lobster farm is a possibility of the
near future-a marine plantation among
the wave washed rocks where the popu-
lar shell fish will be continually under
the supervision of the owner from the
summer days in which they are Matched
as feeble floating wigglers until five or
six years later they are big enough for
.'Newburg'' or ''broiled live"
There are those who foresee long
line of lobster holdings on the Atlantic
coast from Labrador to the Delaware
breakwater. New England cannot vie
with the fertile west in raising corn and
wheat; but neither can the west COM
pete with the seaboard in producing lob
sters.
Experts, at all events, from abroad,
where the danger of losing the lobster
altogether is also imminent, have visited
the Rhode Island experiment station and
been impressed with it's work.
The United States hatchery at Booth
bay Harbor in Maine, which has hereto
fore simply attended to Matching the
eggs and letting loose the young Holsters
In the first stage of their growth, is re-
ported to be about to adopt the plan of
rearing that has been found successful
at Wexford. To set a cloud of the
larvae free in the ocean has been found
TO be mainly an excellent means of feed
Ing other fish,
While, therefore, the young biologists
of the university at Providence have
been pursuing during the vacation months
college studies that count as part of their
regular work they have also been as
sisting in a very important Industrial I'M
dertaking. For the past six or seven
years, under the direction of Professor A.
d. Mead of the department of biology at