The Young Wireless Operator— With the Oyster Fleet

The Young Wireless Operator— With the Oyster Fleet

The story of America's wonderful beds of oysters is the same as the story of her matchless forests, her remarkable deposits of oil, her countless herds of bison, and her innumerable flocks of wild pigeons; and that story is completely told in one word of five letters—waste. When our magnificent Pennsylvania forests were cut, millions of feet of lumber were wantonly wasted, left to rot on the ground after the bark had been stripped off. When that unequaled pool of oil was discovered at Spindletop, gushers were allowed to spout for days and hours merely to gratify the vanity of purse-proud owners, and oil was wasted by the hundred thousand barrels. We are paying for such wastes to-day in the high price of lumber and oil. And our children and our children's children will go on paying the price.
I live on the banks of one of America's noblest rivers, the Susquehanna. A hundred years ago one could throw a line overboard and draw out fish without number. Now, one can fish half a day without getting a nibble. Some day, perhaps, we shall have fish again in the Susquehanna. But it will be in the same way that we are gradually reforesting our denuded Pennsylvania mountains—at enormous cost, which means perpetually high priced lumber. It will be the same with our oysters. The enormous beds, which, properly conserved, would have supplied the nation with cheap oysters for generations, are gone.
Most of us know less about oyster production than we do about lumbering or oil drilling. Yet oystering is one of the few truly picturesque occupations that survive in American life. This book, like its immediate predecessor, The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol, is written in the hope that young readers may come to understand the real results of such wastes—the permanent imposition of unnecessary and burdensome costs for necessities of life which should be cheap.