476 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Company's point of view as well as from a public point of 

 view, it is desirable that it should be only small, and that 

 whatever prospects the Company may have of recovering 

 its position, those prospects will be better if its efforts are 

 concentrated on a small portion of sea bottom. 



I propose, therefore, that the Company should be 

 allowed to retain a portion, one mile wide, of its present 

 grounds. I suggest that the mile should be measured 

 along the shore, half a mile on either side of the Com- 

 pany's decayed oyster fishery pier at Hampton, and that 

 the western and eastern boundaries of the reduced ground 

 should be drawn from either end of this measured mile, 

 parallel with the present western boundary of the Com- 

 pany's grounds, till they reach the present seaward boun- 

 dary. 



I mention these limits because the Company's new 

 stock beds will be in about the centre of the ground thus 

 reserved to it. But if, for any reason which I have over- 

 looked, the Company should prefer that the mile of ground 

 should be moved either eastwards or westwards, I should 

 advise the Board of Trade to comply with such a request. 

 It is my intention to allot to the Company the ground 

 which will be most convenient to it, and if any other por- 

 tion of the ground of the same size is, in the Company's 

 judgment, more convenient, I should be ready to modify 

 my recommendation accordingly.^ 



I cannot conclude this Report without apologising for 

 the length to which it has extended. My only excuse for 



* In the certificate issued by the Board of Trade, on the 3ist of 

 December, 1881, on the recommendation of this Report the mile was, 

 at the request of the Company, measured from a point 800 yards west 

 of the shore end of the Hampton Pier,, to a point 960 yards east of the 

 same pier. 



