OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 459 



These Memorials are not identical. But they all prac- 

 tically pray the Board of Trade to order an inquiry for the 

 purpose of ascertaining whether a certificate should not be 

 issued that the Herne Bay, Hampton, and Reculver Oyster 

 Fishery Company is not properly cultivating the grounds 

 to which the fishery had been reduced in 1876. 



These Memorials which were, I believe, received at 

 the Board of Trade in June and July, 1880 accompanied 

 your letter of the i3th ultimo, instructing me to inquire 

 into the condition of the fishery. They are herewith 

 returned. 



At the opening of my inquiry at Herne Bay, a counter 

 memorial was presented to me through Mr. Bennett, from 

 the inhabitants of Herne Bay, Whitstable, and the neigh- 

 bourhood, praying that " no recommendation or certificate 

 may issue having the effect of annulling or curtailing the 

 rights of the Herne Bay Oyster Fishery Company." The 

 memorial is addressed to the President of the Board of 

 Trade ; it ought, strictly speaking, to have been presented 

 to the Board ; but Mr. Bennett, to whom I pointed out 

 this circumstance, asked me to take charge of it, and sub- 

 mit it to the Board. I accordingly annex it to this 

 Report. 



Mr. Bennett, after presenting this memorial, con- 

 tended that the proper cultivation of the fishery, under the 

 45th section of the Sea Fisheries Act, 1868, must be the 

 cultivation of the fishery contemplated by the jznd section 

 of the Herne Bay Act, 1864 ; in other words, must be 

 cultivation for the twelve months preceding my inquiry. 

 Mr. Fielding, on the other hand, insisted that cultivation 

 was necessarily a continuing act, and that he was entitled 

 to trace the history of the Company, at any rate, from the 

 date of my preceding inquiry. I declined to take upon 



