Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 229 



JURISDICTION. 



Chapter 711 of the Acts of 1906 has no application to the 

 natural oyster beds and bars located in the waters of the State 

 of Maryland, except to provide for their survey and delineation 

 upon maps and charts of the United States Coast and Geodetic 

 Survey of the largest scale and providing a copy for each of the 

 counties of this State in the waters of which natural beds, bars 

 and rocks are located as set forth with great detail in said Act 

 and subject to the right of appeal as therein provided, the action 

 of the Shell Fish Commission shall be conclusive evidence of 

 the boundaries of all natural oyster beds, bars and rocks. All 

 the areas of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries and the 

 waters of the State within the State of Maryland not shown in 

 said survey to, be natural oyster beds, bars or rocks shall be 

 construed in all the courts of the State to be barren bottoms, 

 and it is with this part of the land owned by the State and 

 covered with water that the Act above referred to applies as 

 well as to land lawfully appropriated or taken up for the pur- 

 pose of planting, bedding or cultivating oysters thereon as pro- 

 vided in Section 108 of the Act. 



EXTENT OF HAMAN LAW PATUXENT RIVER LEGIS- 

 LATION. 



And as to the said barren bottoms and land lawfully appro- 

 priated under the Five Acre Acts, Chapter 711, of the Acts of 

 1906, is the only law regulating the rights of citizens of Mary- 

 land to become lessees of the same, providing the terms and 

 conditions upon which they may plant and cultivate oysters, 

 with the exception of the provisions of Chapter 367 of the Acts 

 of 1906, which pretends to legislate in reference to the lands 

 under the water of the Patuxent River in Calvert County. This 

 being a local law for that river in Calvert County, somewhat 

 similar in its provisions to the general law above referred to 

 known as the Haman Bill, it is at least very doubtful whether 



