Although most actively prosecuted during the summer, sponge fishing is now followed more or less throughout the year, the vessels beginning their trips in January and working the different beds successively from north southward. The state of the weather greatly affects the result of the fishery. In some years it has been a complete failure, while in others it has been very profitable, always owing to the weather. As the natural beds of sponges have become scarcer prices have advanced, so that even if a vessel does not secure as large a quantity in a given time as formerly the finan cial result is about the same.
Several varieties of sponges are caught in Florida waters. There are first, sheep's wool, which sell for $2 to $5 a pound; second, yellow sponges, which sell for 50 to 60 cents per pound, and third, grass sponges, which are coarse in texture and not durable, and sell for 15 to 25 cents per pound. Other coarse grades are boat and glove sponges. When these are marketed they are trimmed and cleaned of sand and shells and then pressed into small bales of 100 to 120 pounds each, in which form they go to the wholesale dealers. The yellow sponge especially is subjected to a bleaching process to improve the color, but the process ordinarily employed greatly weakens the fibre.
Owing to the rapidly decreasing supply of the finer grades and the rising price the prob lem of propagating sponges artificially has been taken up seriously by the United States Bureau of Fisheries. It has been found that sponges may be raised successfully both from the egg and from cuttings, but, owing to the much shorter time required for the latter to reach a marketable size, the first method has been abandoned. The technical problems of sponge
raising have been largely solved and there is every promise that their culture on a commer cial scale can be undertaken in the near future and that the depleted grounds will be restocked.
The Florida sponge fisheries employ about 2,245 persons, with 156 vessels and other ap paratus valued at $594,598. The average annual product aggregates 418,125 pounds of all kinds of commercial sponges, which sell for $567,685. To this total, sheep's-wool sponges contribute 181,311 pounds, valued at $483,263.
Bowerbank, J. S., (British Spongidz) (4 vols., London 1864-82); Cobb,
Sponge Fishery of Florida in 1900) (in
of United States Fish Commission,' Washington 1903) ; Hmckel, (Die Kalk schwamme' (Berlin 1872); Hinde,
of Fossil Sponges of the British Museum' (London 1883); Hyatt, A.,
American
(in Boston Society of Natural His tory's Memoirs, Vol. II, Boston 1875); Lenden feld, (The Horny
(London 1289) ; Minchin,
(in Lankester's (Treatise on Zoology) Part II, London 1900); Moore,
(Washington 1903); Potts,