Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners 149 



average rate of 215 acres per year has an important bearing 

 upon the criticism which has been made of the method used by 

 the Commission in determining the status of oyster grounds: 

 It is claimed that such grounds as are not in a condition at the 

 time they are surveyed to yield a livelihood will, if left alone, 

 soon become restocked by nature and should therefore be 

 charted as natural bars. This is sometimes true, and when the 

 condition of a depleted oyster ground is found to be such at 

 the time of its survey as to indicate the probability of future 

 productiveness, it is- the rule of the Commission to chart the 

 same as a natural bar; but the history of the oyster grounds 

 of Pocomoke Sound shows that as a rule depleted oyster 

 grounds have not become restocked when left alone, but that 

 they hava gradually become more and more exhausted until all 

 trace has been lost of even the names by which they were 

 once known. 



It is true that depleted oyster grounds fluctuate slightly from 

 year to year in the quantity of oysters they produce, but the 

 history of the oyster grounds of Pocomoke Sound indicates that 

 the condition of a depleted ground after each succeeding im- 

 provement is not quite so good as the condition after former 

 improvements and that each succeeding depletion is a little 

 more extensive than former depletions. 



The barren bottoms subject to lease in Pocomoke Sound for 

 oyster culture cover an area of, about 6,000 acres, of which 

 about 500 acres are now under successful oyster cultivation. 

 There can be no doubt of the fitness of these bottoms for oyster 

 culture since they once produced oysters naturally. The 

 physical and biological condition which exists now in the sec- 

 tion are probably the same as in former years with the excep- 

 tion of the condition of the bottom. Lots in Pocomoke Sound 

 can probably be stocked with oysters by planting shells at the 

 proper time during the seasons favorable to the setting of spat, 

 but the greater part of the bottom is more favorably located for 

 growing oysters from seed transplanted from other sections. 



Crabbing bottoms, covering an area of 2,880 acres, have been 

 excluded from lease for oyster culture. They occupy the 

 greater part of the territory between the coast line, from Apes 

 Hole Creek to, and including, Cedar Straits, and the Maryland- 

 Virginia boundary line. 



