28 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 



able oysters available on the bottom one season, will remain on the 

 bar at the end of the season, and that one-half of the oysters which 

 are less than two and one-half inches in length (culls) one season, 

 will have grown to marketable size before the opening of the next. 

 These estimates are intendd to show whether the bars are tending 

 toward depletion or toward continued productivity. They are 

 thought to be fairly accurate for such natural bars as have a hard 

 foundation, for on such bars, oysters and shells are usually fairly 

 continuouslydistributed. For bars which cover bottoms composed of 

 soft mud the estimates are not to be considered accurate, because on 

 such bottoms oysters grow in dense patches or lumps, the bottom 

 between being entirely barren. 



The quantities of oysters taken by the tongmen at the examina- 

 tion stations are made the basis for the estimates of the yield of the 

 natural bars, and the estimated yield is therefore in excess of the 

 actual, for the stations selected by the local assistants for examina- 

 tion are usually those which the chain-wire apparatus indicated to 

 be better stocked with oysters than the adjacent areas. 



The number of licenses issued to oystermen during successive 

 oyster seasons afford an index to the general condition of the public 

 oyster grounds in the various parts of the State and supplies a fairly 

 satisfactory basis upon which to estimate the total quantity of 

 oysters yielded by the public oyster grounds of the State during any 

 particular season. For this reason the following table is intro- 

 duced : 



TABLE SHOWING ALL LICENSES ISSUED TO OYSTERMEN IN MARY- 

 LAND DURING THE OYSTER SEASONS SINCE 1906. 



To Tongmen. To Scrapers. 



County. 1906 1907 1908 1909 1906 1907 1908 1909 



1907 1908 1909 1910 1907 1908 1909 1910 



Anne Arundel 847 770 1211 1198 



Calvert 733 754 790 719 



Charles 197 260 222 179 



Dorchester.. 1168 1054 1039 951 401 412 412 400 



Kent 449 541 666 593 



Queen Anne's 429 497 519 468 



Somerset 513 376 364 3*51 428 324 442 303 



St. Mary's.. 1015 1044 878 755 



Talbot 632 706 625 457 101 104 115 206 



Wicomico. . . 756 435 496 409 



Worcester. . . 



Balto. City 32 61 49 3§ 



Total 6559 6437 6810 6080 930 840 969 909 544 638 684 578 



