THE OYSTER-INDUSTRY. 113 



III. Forbids any person taking up or disturbing oysters i^lanted under all the waters of this state suiTouuding 

 Staten Island, without previous permission from the owners. 

 New Jersey's laws, applying here, are substantially similar : 



I. No summer raking or sale of oysters allowed on public ground. 



II. No dredging in any shape allowed. 



III. No oysters to be gathered to be made into lime, or to be nsed in iron manufticture. 



IV. No person, not a resident of the state for six months previous, may gather oysters or clams in state waters 

 for himself or for his employer. 



V. Any owners or licensed persons may plant oysters or clams upon any flats or coves (not natural beds) and 

 one chain beyond the same, along the shores of Newark bay and Staten Island sound, under prescribed conditions 

 of staking out, etc. A penalty is fixed for taking oysters without authority from such iuclosures. 



VI. Prohibits taking " from any natiu-al oyster-banks or beds in this state any old shells other than such as 

 cannot be removed or separated from the oysters without injuring the same ; and all such shells shall be culled 

 and thrown back again upon the said natural banks or beds"; but this does nob apply to private beds. 



Law-making: Quarrels and litigations. — These laws grew up one by one, and at first were misunderstood 

 and willfully disregarded on all sides. Between New York and New Jersey, in the persons of the Staten Islanders 

 and Jerseymen, thei'e were constant quarrels, and even open war, now and then, owing to alleged infriugemeuts of 

 the vague boundary-line, by one party or the other. If one side thought they discovered that an oysterman from 

 the opposite shore was jilacing his oysters within their waters, they felt no hesitancy or compunction in at once 

 raking his stock up, claiming that he hadno right to this ground, and consequently the oysters he had bought and 

 placed there were public plunder. Arrests for larceny would follow, tedious imprisonments ensue, armed guards 

 patrol the domains of the respective states, a few men get shot, perhaps, and much trouble to the whole community 

 be caused. This state of affairs has not yet ceased ; and I suppose it never will. The accusation was constantly 

 being made, also, chieiiy by the penniless and shiftless, against prosperous planters, that natural-growth ground 

 had been staked oft' and was being used privately, to the detriment of the general welfare of the community. Then, 

 too, there were plenty of persons who altogether disputed any rights of property in planted oj'sters, and failed by 

 their conduct to recognize the law which said there were such rights. Nor, in northern New Jersey at least, was it 

 until fifty years had elaijsed after the laws relating to planted oysters had first been published, that the subject was 

 finally and clearly settled by the supreme court. On an appeal from Cape May, tried in 1858, it was charged that 

 Thomas Taylor had stolen oysters to the value of $18 from George Hildreth. This time the question of the right to 

 oysters planted where there was no natural growth was reached and decided. The coiinsel for the defendant 

 (T;iylor) pleaded that " oysters being animals /era' natune, there can be no proijerty in them unless they be dead, or 

 reclaimed, or tamed, or in the actual power or possession of the claimant". 



The chief justice, in giving the ojiinion of the court, said : 



The iirinciple advanced bj- defendant's connsel, as applied to animals ferce natura, is not questioned. But oysters, though usually 

 included in that description of animals, do not come within the reason or operation of the rule. The owner has the same absolute 

 property in them that he has in inanimate things or domestic animals. Like domestic animals, they continue perpetually in his occupation 

 and will not stray from his house or person. Unlike animals fer(x natura; they do not require to be reclaimed and made tame by art, 

 industry, or education, nor to be confined iu order to be within the immediate power of the owner. If at liberty, they have neither the 

 inclination nor power to escape. For the purposes of the present inquiry they are obviously more nearly allied to tame animals than to 

 wild ones, and perhaps more nearly allied to inanimate objects than to animals of either description. The indictment could not aver that 

 the oysters were dead, for they would then be of no value ; nor that they were reclaimed or tamed, for in this sense they were never wild 

 and were not capable of domestication ; nor that they were confined, for that would be absurd. 



It was the decision of the court that the owner has the same absolute property in oysters that he has in 

 inanimate things or domestic animals, and that an indictment would lie for stealing oysters planted iu a public or 

 navigable river, where oysters do not grow naturally, and the spot designated by stakes or otherwise. 



On the other hand, courts decided that action does not lie for taking oysters claimed as planted in a common 

 navigable stream in which others were found. The court seemed to consider the throwing of oyster-plants where 

 there is a natural gro\vth as an abandonment, and compared it to a man "who should take a deer in a forest and 

 be simpleton enough to let it go again in the same forest, saying, ' this is my deer, and no man shall touch it;' it 

 would never be asked by the next taker what was the intention of the simpleton; the very act of letting it go was 

 an abandonment." 



Virginia seed and native seed. — In early days Virginia oysters were mc re largely planted than now, except 

 by a few New York dealers, and the beds of natives were supplied by seed found at home or at most in York bay, it 

 merely being necessary to gather it up from the scattered spots where it lay or had "struck", and place it upon the 

 private bed.s ; the immediate waters of Staten Lsland or the neighboring coasts have furnished little or no seed. It 

 is seventy years, I was told by Capt. Benjamin Decker — to whom I am greatly indebted for information — since any 

 young oysters have " struck" along the southern shore of the island, iu quantities worth getting. The great natural 

 beds there and in the mouth of the Earitan and the beds olf Shrewsbury, were exhausted years and years ago, and 

 although now and then small deposits of young oysters are found in various parts of these waters, no reliance is 

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