66 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 



extended. It is technically described and defined in the report* 

 entitled "Survey of Oyster Bars of Queen Anne's County," pre- 

 pared by Captain C. C. Yates in co-operation with the Shell Fish 

 Commission and published by the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

 This portion of the bay contains 6,056 acres of productive oyster 

 grounds, all of which have been charted and reserved to the Public 

 Oyster Fishery within the limits of five natural bars. The area 

 claimed by the local assistant to be oyster-producing and accordingly 

 surveyed and examined, covers an uninterrupted strip of bottom 

 having an average width of more than a half-mile, beginning at 

 Bloody Point Bar Light House and extending to the edge of the 

 sand bar one mile N. E. of Love Point Light House, a distance of 

 nearly eighteen miles. 



Almost the entire area of this oyster ground was found to be 

 confined to the hard bottoms of the very wide sandy beach which 

 everywhere skirts the bay shore of Kent Island. Oysters grow 

 quite near to the shore at Bloody Point and in the vicinity of Broad 

 creek, but the in-shore limits of the productive bottoms at other 

 places do not approach nearer low-water mark than about one- 

 fourth mile, and often not nearer than a half mile. The depth of 

 water seems to have much to do with the spread of oysters upon 

 hard, sandy bottoms in exposed areas, such as that along the Kent 

 Island shore, and the depth limit of the oysters in this, as in many 

 other sections, was found to be near the 5 to 8-feet depth curves. 

 In waters shallower than this, sandy bottoms are frequently shifted 

 and disturbed by breaking waves, and the formation of oyster com- 

 munities is thereby prevented. The off-shore limits of the oyster 

 bars extend a short distance beyond the hard, sandy beach, upon 

 the sticky and soft muddy bottom of the bay channel and are cov- 

 ered by water varying in depth from 25 to 50 feet, but the greater 

 part of the bottoms on which oysters grow (perhaps 80%) is hard. 



The bottoms found to be entirely exhausted or not sufficiently 

 productive to justify their reservation to the public oyster fishery, 

 aggregate an area of about 3,200 acres. At some places the outer 



* Copies of this report, which includes a set of charts showing the location 

 and extent of the natural oyster bars and the boundary lines of county waters 

 and waters adjacent to Queen Anne's county, may be secured from the Superin- 

 tendent of the U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 



