This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

00455
? STATE! ISE 8,396 DREDGES PRODUCING ONE-HALF OF YIELD
OR r.7,000,000 CUT OF *.15,000,000
CULLING ON GROUND INCREASES QUALITY AND SIZE AS WELL AS THE AREA OF TH~ BEDS August 16, 1893
The Biloxi Herald - Saturday Evening, August 26, 1893,
in Lonez, Dunbar's Sons & Co. Oyster Dredging article
U.S. COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES Washington, D. C.
W. A. White,	August	16,	1893
Biloxi, Miss.
Dear Sir:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 12th instant and shall endeavor to answer your inquiries as fully as the information possessed by this commission will permit.
Referring to your first question, the effect of Dredging on the oyster beds, I will thate that it may be regarded as an established fact that the deleterious result of the use of Dred aes is reduced to a minimum when the oysters are culled cn the grounds and the small oysters and shells are returned to the ■'■ater. It can be proved that the depletion of the natural oyster beds in many states by the employment of Dredges might have been orevented or almost indefinitely nostooned had the culling been done on the grounds instead of on the shore.
MU
’hen oysters grow very thickly cn a given area, the Dredge has a tendency to increase the area of the beds and to improve the size and quality of the oysters. It is also probable th't the separation of the clustered oysters by the Dredge will lead to the production of a larger amount of spat, and, in time, to an increase in the quantity of marketable oysters.
In other words, the harmful effects vhiih have rometimes attended the operation of the Dredge have been due to the abuse of that form of apparatus. As you are doubtless aware, some of the most important oyster grounds in the country can be worked by no other means than the Dredge, notably the deep vater grounds of Long Island Sound, Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay, while in some states, more especially in the South, the employment of dredges is not usually necessary, owing to the shoalness of the-oyster beds.
rn tforefoi?S remarks ap~ly especially to natural, outlie grounds
Dredge	VT	3	ProPriet3ry	right'is held, the
operati ons	apparatus for carrying on the planting