228 Our Food Mollusks 



Under the present system, Maryland can have only 

 small planters, who may succeed one year and fail an- 

 other. Holdings are not large enough to warrant the 

 employment of suitable boats. Most of the planted 

 oysters will be tonged or " scraped " after the old 

 fashion, and only in good weather is such work possible. 

 If leases should become numerous, much litigation will 

 arise because boundaries are insufficiently surveyed and 

 charted. Prices will rise and fall as many or few bring 

 in their harvest, and these small and poor planters will 

 have the greatest difficulty in protecting themselves 

 against dredging vessels. 



The foremost desire is still for direct revenue to the 

 state. The direct revenue system of Rhode Island is 

 very attractive about the Chesapeake, but Narragansett 

 Bay is small enough to be policed efficiently, and cap- 

 ital is invested only because the state offers unlimited ter- 

 ritory and has allowed much of it to be taken by non- 

 residents. Many of the essential conditions are differ- 

 ent in Rhode Island, and it is doubtful if, even there, the 

 state profits by its industry as does Connecticut, in which 

 bottoms are sold, but where taxable property has de- 

 veloped indirectly under the great increase of the oyster 

 business. 



But in the course of time — after the natural oyster beds 

 have been destroyed — the tonger and the dredger of the 

 natural crop will have disappeared. All opposition to 

 oyster culture having vanished, the Chesapeake, rich with 

 food for an unlimited oyster growth, free from the most 

 destructive of oyster enemies, with its safe and unvary- 

 ing natural conditions, will prove to be of greater value 

 to the people on its shores than mountains full of silver 

 and gold. 



