102 Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 



can be omitted without thereby failing to provide a basis in law such 

 as is required for the devlopment of a great industry in oyster cul- 

 ture upon our unproductive oyster lands. 



By their enactment oyster planters will be permitted to lease areas 

 sufficiently large to justify them in the purchase of an equipment 

 adequate to the work of properly cultivating and policing oyster 

 grounds; the restrictions which now prevent the use of such an 

 equipment by planters will be removed and oyster planters will be 

 permitted to secure seed oysters small enough so that the antici- 

 pated increase through growth will be sufficient to induce citizens 

 of the State to lease the bottoms available for oyster culture and at- 

 tempt to develop their possibilities for oyster production. 



Although these privileges are considered by oyster planters every- 

 where to be essential to success in oyster culture and are enjoyed by 

 oyster planters in all those States in which oyster culture is carried 

 on successfully, they are withheld from planters in Maryland. 

 Under our law in its present form it is not possible for a citizen to 

 lease more than ten acres of bottom for the purposes of oyster cul- 

 ture in those localities where dredging on the natural oyster beds 

 is prohibited, and hence where conditions are most favorable to the 

 establishment and development of oyster culture. The greatest pos- 

 sible profits from planting on ten acres of bottom are too small to 

 warrant a lessee of such a lot in the purchase of the expen- 

 sive equipment required for its cultivation and protection. On 

 these most valuable bottoms, also, lessees are restricted by the 

 present law to the use of tongs for cultivating and gathering 

 their planted oysters. The use of dredges from power boats is pro- 

 hibited. The use of tongs for gathering oysters is a slow and ex- 

 pensive method at best, and can be profitably employed only in case 

 the bottom is closely stocked with oysters; hence lessees of oyster 

 lots in localities where dredging is prohibited are compelled to plant 

 their oysters so thickly upon the bottom that the available supply of 

 oyster food in the water is insufficient to provide for their proper 

 nourishment and growth. The numerous failures in oyster culture 

 which are clue to such overplanting can be largely avoided when the 

 right to gather planted oysters with a dredge from a power boat 

 has been granted. Planters will then be able to take into account 

 the oyster food supply and distribute their oysters accordingly, for 

 no matter how scatteringly oysters may be distributed over the bot- 



