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 74 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 



Finding it apparent that many lotholders under the former 

 law were not cognizant of the provisions of Section 108, the 

 Commission procured a list of the names and postoffice ad- 

 dresses of these lotholders from the Clerk of the Circuit Court 

 of the several tidewater counties, and caused to be mailed to 

 each of the addresses given, a circular letter upon which was 

 reproduced Section 108 of the Haman Oyster Culture Bill, and 

 in which special attention of the lotholder was called to the for- 

 feiture clause of the Section. 



Similar notices were also published in two papers, represent- 

 ing opposite political parties, in each of the tidewater counties 

 of Maryland, and mailed to the postmasters throughout the 

 tidewater section of the State, with the request that they be 

 conspicuously posted. 



The result attained by this method of notifying each lot- 

 holder under former law, needless to say, is disappointing 

 to the friends of oyster culture, as from a total of 4,009 former 

 lotholders to whom notice was mailed, as above stated, but 849 

 filed application for the retention of their respective lots within 

 the period required by law, and of the total number so applying, 

 but 311 have so far executed a lease to the State for the lot 

 applied for. 



This result, however, is to some extent explained by the fact 

 that many former lotholders, knowing their right to lease ten 

 acres or one hundred acres (dependent upon "the location of the 

 land they desired to lease), and being fully cognizant of the 

 provisions of the law reserving to them priorities as riparian 

 owners, deemed it expedient to defer the official notification to 

 the Board, as contemplated by law, until after the waters of 

 their respective counties shall have been surveyed and opened 

 up for leasing purposes. In any event, the Board of Shell Fish 

 Commissioners has exhausted every means of bringing notice 

 to former lotholders of the rights especially reserved to them, 

 and while strictly interpretating the law as to the express 

 requirement of written notice, within six months from the pas- 

 sage of the Act, it has been the policy of the Board to deal 

 liberally with this class of lessees, and hence it has permitted 

 all who did not formally notify the Board upon the prescribed 



