NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 295 



SHELLS. 



These have always been an item for consideration usually given away, but in 

 some cases used at a profit. The uses are increasing for roads and filling in land, 

 for making lime, making coal gas, for beds of railroads, ground up for chicken food, 

 and for fertilizers, employed in making some grades of iron, and as "cultch" for spat. 



MEANS OF PROTECTING AND PRESERVING THE NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL BEDS 

 AND PROMOTING AN INCREASE. 



While the natural beds can and should be protected to a certain extent, yet pro- 

 tection is a very perplexing problem, as the requirements of one set of people in one 

 part of the State differ from those of the other parts. Still, there can be no question 

 that efforts should be made to not only protect and preserve oysters but to encourage 

 and promote their cultivation as a separate industry. To secure good results in this 

 direction will require the efforts of more than one generation. The oystermen who 

 are directly dependent on the public oyster-beds for food for themselves and their 

 families must be educated to the idea that any protection of natural and artificial 

 beds is not an infringement upon their rights, but for their interest and ultimate 

 benefit. While they recognize that such laws are made as a rule in their interest, yet 

 the moral sentiment of the oystermen in some sections, North and South, is not in 

 favor of protection because they do not understand the subject. They feel and believe 

 that any law to promote, encourage, and protect the natural oyster or the cultivation 

 thereof is a monopoly and an encroachment upon their rights. 



In considering the question of oyster protection it should be borne in mind that 

 oyster-beds are the property of the State and that the legislature can make any regu- 

 lation concerning them as may seem for the best interests of the State at large. Yet 

 the conditions of nature in the extended bodies of water are so varied that it is very 

 difficult to secure a general law which will suit all sections and do injustice to none. 

 Local laws are equally uncertain, as some legislators may be affected by local influ- 

 ences, even to the injury of the State, as is shown elsewhere. Let the commissioners 

 of fisheries of the State, as the law now contemplates, regulate this subject. The 

 statutes on oysters are in the main very favorable and commendable, with some slight 

 amendments, but not properly constructed in some cases and never enforced in any 

 part of the State. It is not possible, in my opinion, to convict anyone under the law, 

 for the reason, no doubt, that the fishermen feel that it is against their procuring a 

 living. Take, for instance, the catching of oysters for "home consumption" in the 

 closed season. It is a wide loophole and used as an infringement of the law; so the 

 laws are of practically no value. 



There is one other and more serious legal defect relating to the planting and cul- 

 tivating of artificial beds. This is the matter of riparian rights, which is not uniform 

 in different parts of the State, and is yet open for judicial determination by the 

 supreme court. Inasmuch as no claim for rights can be made for something which 

 does not exist, in the cases where the suitable grounds are outside of any riparian 

 interest (that is, between the low- water mark and the public highway or ship channel, 

 and beyond any but the State's control) the law must be formulated for the absolute 

 control by the State. No man at present will put his money in oyster-beds. In my 

 opinion the laws and system in force in Connecticut are the best in the world, but they 

 will not in all cases apply to Florida, owing especially to the riparian privileges and 



