CONNECTICUT: NEW HAVEN AND VICINITY. 329 



"This new departure, or unlooked-for expansion of the business, caused considerable excitement 

 as it rapidly developed. It was soon seen, in tbe first place, that the existing statutes, which 

 never had contemplated this sort of thing, would not fit all the exigencies, and after the codifica- 

 tion of 1800 alterations and amendments rapidly followed one another, in which the conflicting 

 interests of the deep-water cultivators and the small inshore owners were sought to be harmonized 

 or guarded against opposition. Although recognized by law and acknowledged by clear heads 

 since the earliest times, the rights of proprietorship under the water, and the notion of property 

 in the growth and improvement ensuing upon ground granted and worked for oyster-culture, have 

 hardly yet permeated the public mind and become generally accepted facts. Cultivators of all 

 grades found many and many instances in which their staked-out ground was reappropriated, or the 

 oysters, upon which they had spent a great deal of time and money, were taken by their neighbors 

 even, who angrily resented any imputation of stealing. Not uncommonly the proceeding was 

 much after the manner of mining in a new gold or silver region, such as the Leadville district of 

 Colorado, for instance, where prospectors 'locate claims' on top of one another, and all went to 

 digging side by side, the first one to strike 'mineral' having a right to any or all of his rivals' 

 territory, within stipulated limits. 



"Having put some oysters on a piece of ground and found them to do well, a man would put 

 in a claim for a grant of that piece, and feel greatly abused because it had previously been desig- 

 nated to some man who knew that the only proper or safe way was to get legal possession of the 

 ground first, and make a trial afterwards.* Then number one would claim the right to remove his 

 oysters, and in doing so would be sure to be charged by number two with taking more than 

 belonged to him. It was easy, too, for unscrupulous persons to dump seed or large oysters upon 

 ground that they pretended not to know was already granted, and then, in taking their stuff' away, 

 to rake up a large addition. 



"If a man neglected to take out a title to his ground, or omitted any technicality, somebody 

 stood always ready to rob him of all the results of his work in open daylight, with the calmest 

 effrontery. 'All that is under water is public property' was the maxim of the million, 'unless 

 every form of law is observed'; and unless it is watched with a shotgun besides, they might have 

 added. An authentic incident that happened many years ago will illustrate this temper; and I 

 should not devote so much attention to this matter were it not that this false philosophy has been 

 almost universal, has proved the greatest stumbling-block to the prosperity of efforts at oyster- 

 culture along this whole coast, and is almost ineradicable from the 'longshore mind. 



"Two of the veterans of the native oyster business at this point were born and spent their 

 boyhood on the shore, and early became accustomed to the habits and haunts of all the fishes and 

 mollusks. When they were lads of seventeen they sought out a suitable place near the western 

 shore, and gradually accumulated there an artificial bed of native oysters, which soon attained a 

 merchantable size. There were several hundreds of bushels, and the young men were congratu- 

 lating themselves as fall approached that upon the early completion of the engagements which 

 then occupied their time they would reap a rich harvest from their labor and patience. The time 

 when they intended to take them up was only a few days distant, and no harm by storm or other- 

 wise had come to the bed, when one morning they went out only to find that every oyster had 

 disappeared. It was a cruel disappointment, but inquiry soon solved the riddle. In the darkness 



* Perhaps some excuse or explanation of this sore feeling is found in the fact that the town of Branford allowed 

 a mau to apply for and try a quantity of land a year; at the expiration he could pay for it or "heave it up," as he 

 thought best. This was a purely local regulation, however. 



