64 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 



acre on tonging grounds in Anne Arundel and Somerset coun- 

 ties, in order to yield the above amounts to tongmen per day 

 and per season are shown in columns 5 and 6 of the tables 

 printed on pages 65 and 66. 



DREDGING AND SCRAPING GROUNDS. 



Dredgers and scrapers are able to cover so much more 

 ground than tongmen per season and per day that it is- not 

 necessary for dredging and scraping grounds to be so well 

 stocked with oysters as tonging grounds in order to yield a 

 livelihood to oystermen. A dredger with a boat of 1,000 bushels 

 capacity by covering eight acres per day would cover 464 acres 

 by the end of a season of fifty-eight working days. Each 

 dredger, however, has but 128 acres (in Anne Arundel County) 

 on which to make a livelihood and if, after working from six- 

 teen to twenty days-, he continues to dredge, he either covers 

 ground already covered by himself or by other dredgers. 

 Dredging grounds must be sufficiently well shocked therefore 

 that 128 acres will yield, or giye promise to yield in the near 

 future, a quantity of oysters to a dredger, operating a boat of 

 1,000 bushels capacity, which can be sold for the minimum live- 

 lihood for such a dredger. 



The minimum quantity of oysters on dredging and scraping 

 grounds per square yard and per acre which, according to the 

 information collected by the Commission, will supply a liveli- 

 hood to dredgers and scrapers is shown in the table which 

 follows. According to this standard, the dredging and scrap- 

 ing grounds surveyed and examined by the Commission have 

 been gauged. 



