OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 433 



ductiveness which characterised them 20 years ao-o, but 



J J O ' 



which they had lost when the Order was granted. They 

 are now in an exhausted state ; and the condition of that 

 part of the beds which was fished in 1875 is not only similar, 

 but is likely to remain so. Until after the summer of that 

 year, ^30 annually was paid for watching the closed beds 

 to a pilot whose business led him into their neighbourhood, 

 and for some time before they were opened additional 

 payments were made for more constant supervision than 

 had before been given ; but since then all special watching 

 has ceased, and they are only visited on the rare occasions 

 when the water bailiff can be spared from the mussel scalps. 

 He appears to have been on the oyster grounds less than 

 ten times in the current year, and it is confessed that they 

 are now practically open. If they are not fished, it is 

 because the dredgermen do not find enough on them to 

 repay their labour. 



As the oyster beds within the area affected by the 

 Order are of large size, and were formerly highly produc- 

 tive, the cessation of efficient control over them from the 



I 



moment at which it was seen that a hope of their recovery 

 might still be entertained, constitutes, primd facie, a neg- 

 lect to carry into effect the provisions of the Order in 

 respect to one of the two equally important objects con- 

 templated by it ; and as the oyster beds are confined to 

 the northern part of the Lynn Deeps, and the mussel 

 scalps are equally limited to the southern portion, a failure 

 to carry out the Order is an abandonment of half the 

 ground asked for and conceded. It lies with the Corpora- 

 tion, therefore, to show that no other action than that 

 which they have taken has been open to them. It is 

 alleged on their part that their income is not sufficient to 



