University of Virginia Library

INTRODUCTION.

This book (for which I have been asked to write an
introductory note) is written for the information of all
who care for oysters,—no matter whether their point
of view be that of providers or consumers,—of the
oysterman, the money-maker, the housekeeper, the
legislator, the editor, or the student of natural history.
So well is the book written that many parts of it are as
fascinating as a story.

The facts that have led to its preparation are these.
After many years of plenty, Maryland is in danger
of an oyster famine. The supplies which nature bestows
most bountifully have been so treated that scarcity now
takes the place of abundance, anxiety and alarm have
followed security. Authentic figures showing the decline
and fall of the oyster empire of the Chesapeake,
startle all who consider them. It is not only the
dredgers, the dealers, the shuckers, the packers, the
coopers, the tinners, and the carriers, that are to suffer
if this state of affairs continues, everybody in Maryland
will likewise suffer more or less. An important

article of food, that should be as plèntiful as it is
excellent, will grow more scarce, and a branch of
industry will be cut off, which employs a large amount
of labor and of capital and so contributes to the welfare
of the State, the region, and the country. The
interior as well as the seaboard, the farmer as well as
the oysterman, will be injured unless some remedy is
found.

The author of this volume is well known in all
scientific circles as an accurate, clear-sighted and trustworthy
observer. His papers are received and quoted
by the best authorities in every place where the study
of natural history is carried on. Not only can he see
with his trained eye and powerful glasses, more than
most people, but he can state distinctly and without
any deviation from the exact truth, what he sees, and
what he thinks of what he sees. His life has been
devoted to the careful observation of the forms and
changes of form in living beings.

To the study of the oyster he has devoted a large
part of his time for more than ten years past, having
been encouraged to do so by the Johns Hopkins
University, in which he is an honored professor, and
by the legislature of the State of Maryland, which he
served as an oyster commissioner in 1883-4. He can
hold his own not only among naturalists, but also
among practical men. He has dredged in every part

of the bay. To use his own words, he has tonged
oysters in five different States; in the warm waters of
the South, he has spent months under the broiling
tropical sun, wading over the sharp shells which cut
the feet like knives, studying the oysters "at home."
He has planted oysters; he has reared them by collecting
the floating spat; and he has hatched from artificially
fertilized eggs more oysters than there are
inhabitants of the United States. More than this, he
has diligently studied the experience of other States
and countries and has gathered up the knowledge of
the world in respect to the life of the oyster, its enemies
and its needs, its dangers and its protections.
The people of Maryland may rejoice that in just this
crisis, the State has the service of such a citizen, ready
without any reservations and without any expectations
of reward, to give his hard-earned knowledge to the
public.

But the author has another claim to be heard. He
is governed by common-sense. The difficulty that
he sees is summed up in a single sentence that he
prints in capital letters, THE DEMAND FOR Chesapeake
OYSTERS HAS OUTGROWN THE NATURAL SUPPLY. The
remedy he proposes is to increase the supply by
artificial means. To show what is possible for the
propagation and protection of young oysters, he
describes in the most interesting manner, in terms

scientific enough to be accurate, not so scientific as to
be hard of understanding, the life-history of the bivalve.
The oyster's exposure to infantile dangers, its preferred
home, its dietary habits, its susceptibility of
culture, its wonderful fecundity, are vividly portrayed.
Indeed, this modest volume is at once a memoir in
natural history and a chapter of political economy.