186 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 



The argument in the foregoing pages that bottoms in rivers 

 and coves over which the flow of water is slow, are not favor- 

 ably located for the purpose of securing seed oysters seems to 

 be opposed by the fact that natural oyster bars exist in rivers 

 and coves in perhaps greater number than in the Bay. A glance 

 at the charts showing the location and extent of the oyster bars 

 in Anne Arundel County is enough to show that nearly nil 1ho 

 bottoms outside the channels in all the tidewater rivers are or 

 have been the site of natural bars. 



It must be remembered, however, that natural oyster bars 

 have in every case been established very slowly the cultch 

 forming the basis for the bars having accumulated and become 

 spread over larger and larger areas very gradually. The addi- 

 tion of a few young oysters here and there each year has been 

 sufficient finally to build up a dense colony, but the length of 

 time during which the building process lasted must not be lost 

 sight of. 



A planter having leased a barren bottom for oyster culture 

 cannot afford to wait long for results. The expense incurred 

 during a few years when the catch of young oysters to his ex- 

 posed shells is small or none is too great to be covered by the 

 good catch* of spat he may now and then secure. 



If there are grounds so located, whether in the rivers or in 

 the Bay, that a good set of spat may be secured practically 

 each season to exposed shells, much time and expense can be 

 saved by utilizing them for the purpose of seed production only, 

 transplanting the seed caught each season to grounds better 

 adapted for growing oysters than for catching spat. 



It is a fact known generally among oystermen that natural 

 bars located at certain points in the Bay and at a few places 

 in some rivers and sounds become set with young oysters much 

 more regularly and thickly than others, and it is this fact which 

 the Commission wishes to see applied to the barren bottoms 

 now open for oyster culture. 



Bottoms Adapted to Producing Seed Oysters. 



Bottoms adapted to the production of seed oysters cannot 

 always be selected according to any set rule because experience 



