reof to be taken up again, as soon as the weir becomes
useless; and if any person shall fail of performing his duty
herein, he shall forfeit and pay fifteen shillings current money,
to the informer: To be recovered, with costs, before a justice of
the peace.

The essentials of any stable industry are: control of supply and means
of distribution. The fisheries of Virginia were blessed with neither of
these advantages. Any progress had to be made in spite of uncertain
harvests and lack of packing and handling facilities. Distribution of
fresh seafoods was impossible without rapid transportation and adequate
refrigeration. Neither was available for two centuries. Virginia's huge
supply of oysters was a case in point. Consumption of oysters was
limited to those who lived on the spot, and though they figured
importantly in the Tidewater diet, as a palpable resource they were
untouched until the 19th century. The principal means of preserving
them before then was by pickling. In that form they were quite popular
during the Colonial period. Fish were salted when there was a surplus
and in certain seasons, especially the spawning time of the anadromous
river-herring, they were available in phenomenal quantities. They
remain today among Virginia's most plentiful fish but the salting
industry has now become a mere token of its former magnitude.

The Chesapeake bay blue crab which today constitutes a resource worth
about $5,000,000 a year to Virginia crabbers and packers, had to wait
even longer than fish and oysters did for development. Salting and
pickling were unsuitable to this delicate food and expeditious handling
methods did not exist.

In an exhaustive catalogue of the marine life of Virginia William Byrd
II, of Westover said:

Herring are not as large as the European ones, but better and more
delicious. After being salted they become red. If one prepares them
with vinegar and olive oil, they then taste like anchovies or
sardines, since they are far better in salt than the English or
European herring. When they spawn, all streams and waters are
completely filled with them, and one might believe, when he sees
such terrible amounts of them, that there was as great a supply of
herring as there is water. In a word, it is unbelievable, indeed,
indescribable, as also incomprehensible, what quantity is found
there. One must behold oneself.

At the time he wrote Virgini