Lobsters Among Rhode
Island's Farm Products
Oysters and Clams Also in Rhody's Exhibit in Agriculture Building
Maps and Books on Similar Subjects
Reports of the Rhode Island Commissin of Inland Fisheries -- The Tarpon and
the Tile Fish
Buffalo Evening News, May 29, 1901
The visitor desiring to see a very anomalous exhibit should call at the Rhode Island section of the Agricultural building. What he sees there will remind him very forcibly of the famous chapter on snakes in Ireland which was dismissed with the laconic statement "There are no snakes in Ireland." In like manner the visitor will conlude that, as far as agriculture in "Little Rhody" is concerned, Rhode Island has no agriculture. Instead of corn, oats, wheat, potatoes, hay, turnips and melons, which are to be seen in the pavilions of the other States, the visitor sees in the Rhode Island pavilion only lobsters, clams, fish and shells. The intent apparently is to show to the world that the farms of the State are all oyster beds, and that farm life consists of threshing clams, husking lobsters and churning oysters, all by the sad sea waves.
Case No.1 shows a series of mounted soft-shell clams, newly dug from the succulent mud, and illustrating their growth with various fertilizers. Another case shows scallops under similar conditions. Case No. 3 contains specimens showing the artificial propagation of lobsters by the scientific men of the United States Fisheries Commission and the Rhode Island Commission of Inland Fisheries. The lobsters range in size from pinheads to that served to the Pan-American visitor for 50 cents. Case No. 4 shows how star fishes, the potato bug and weevil, combined in Rhode Island deep sea agriculture, are cultured for the purpose of discovering all their fiendish malignity. Case No. 5 shows fine samples of oysters. The tarpon is shown in case No. 6, also the newly-discovered tile fish.
A relief map of the sea bottom farms of Rhode Island accompanies the exhibit, and shows the acres devoted to the cultivation of clams, lobsters and oysters.
The exhibit is further illuminated by bound reports of the Rhode Island commission of inland fisheries, giving luminous insights into such aquatic crop-lore as the "Life History of the Common Clam," "Observations on Soft Shell Clams," "The Habits and Life History of the Scallop," "Habits and Growth of Young Lobsters," Some Points on the Star Fish," and "The Autobiography of an Oyster."
"How is it that you have not placed this exhibit in the Fisheries Building?" a NEWS reporter inquired of Commissioner Kingsley, who was installing these unique products of the soil in the Agriculture building.
"Because these are the agricultural products of Rhode Island," replied Mr. Kingsley.