. Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries. Fisheries; Fish culture. 436 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. bottle and is sprinkled on the water in small quantities by means of a stick or swab, the sponger drifting with the "slick," poUng back and forth so as to cover its entire breadth. This method of sponging is still followed in the vicinity of Key West and among the keys where the depth does not exceed 5 or 6 feet, two or three men, each with a dingey, cruising about on little sloops, cooking, sleeping, living, and to some extent curing their sponges in the most contracted of quarte
. Bulletin of the Bureau of Fisheries. Fisheries; Fish culture. 436 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. bottle and is sprinkled on the water in small quantities by means of a stick or swab, the sponger drifting with the "slick," poUng back and forth so as to cover its entire breadth. This method of sponging is still followed in the vicinity of Key West and among the keys where the depth does not exceed 5 or 6 feet, two or three men, each with a dingey, cruising about on little sloops, cooking, sleeping, living, and to some extent curing their sponges in the most contracted of quarters. They usually build small, frail " crawls " of a temporary character, to which they return each night while in the vicinity, or else the whole product of the trip is carried back to Key West, often in a most unsavory condition, and "crawled" at that place. This fishery is now generally followed only during the winter months, when the more profitable deep-water fisheries can not be prosecuted on account of the weather, or at other seasons of the year by the less skilled spongers, by per- sons temporarily out of other employment, or by the local residents of the keys. It is prosecuted mainly on the Key grounds as far as the Cowpens and its product is small. With the growth of the demand for sponges and the depletion of the beds nearer Key West, the search for other grounds carried boats farther and farther away until the Matecumbes were reached. Here it was found that the sponge growth inside the keys came to a more or less abrupt limit, but along the northwest shore of Hawk Chaimel, between the keys and the reefs, the workable beds were found to extend as far as Norris Cut, a few miles north of Cape Florida. In 1879 this appears to have been the known extent of the Key grounds, as is shown by a chart of about that date prepared during the canvass for the Tenth Census. Few inhabitants then lived on the shores of Biscayne Bay and the beds in the waters withi
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectfisheries, bookyear19
