330 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



of the preceding night several teams, fully prepared for the work, caine down from miles and 

 miles back in the country, from away up about Westville and Woodbridge and North Orange, and 

 their owners had raked up the whole bed and carted it away to hide in their cellars. No robbery 

 could be plainer, and there was little attempt to secrete it; but there was no redress, and the 

 perpetrators chuckled over it as a good joke without a scruple about the propriety of the thing. 

 Nothing in the sea was private property. 



' ; LEGAL PROTECTION FOR OYSTER-PLANTERS. A vast amount of this sort of stealing and 

 interference with proprietary rights granted by the State was perpetrated and sanctioned by the 

 great majority of the watermen, under the plea that the locality in question was 'natural ground.' 

 Any definition or restriction of this ground was impracticable and resisted. The only resource 

 for the man who had invested money in oyster-culture, and wanted the opportunity to develop his 

 investment, was to declare that no 'natural oyster ground' existed in New Haven Harbor, and 

 that designations past and to come were valid, even though the areas so designated might once 

 have been natural oyster-beds. This checkmated the men who 'jumped claims,' yet refused to be 

 considered thieves; but it caused a tremendous howl against the movers, in which a large number 

 of persons, having small information of the facts, joined, on the general principle of 'death to the 

 capitalist.' It may have worked discomfort in a few individual cases, as all sweeping changes 

 must, but on the whole, considering how nearly exhausted and worthless the Quinepiac fisheries 

 had become, I think it must be regarded as not unjust. At any rate, the legislature of 1875 passed 

 an amendment exempting Orange, New Haven, and East Haven from the enactment prohibiting 

 the setting apart or 'designation' of 'natural oyster-beds' for purposes of planting or cultivation, 

 leaving, however, the law intact for the rest of the State. Had this measure not been passed, 

 systematic cultivation would have been vastly hindered, if not altogether killed, by thieves and 

 malcontents, so far as New Haven harbor is concerned. Elsewhere, under different conditions, 

 no such necessity exists as yet, in order to be able to prosecute the artificial raising. Instantly 

 upon the passage of this act there was a rush by everybody for the possession of lots in all parts 

 of the Quinepiac and West Rivers. The oyster committee of the towns decided that each owner 

 of land abutting on the river should possess the right to the bottom opposite his land for 100 feet 

 from high-water mark. This was a concession to popular feeling, though that opinion had no 

 foundation whatever in law, since the title to riparian real estate in this State terminates at the 

 high-water tide limit. Between these boundaries, or ' wharf lines,' tracts equal in width to each 

 man's water front, and extending to the channel, wer'e allotted to the land owners at $10 to $15 an 

 acre; but the majority of them were not more than half an acre in extent. Lucky receivers of 

 these river grants at once found themselves able to sell for from $25 to $50, and before long there 

 was brisk demand and little sale, at prices ranging from $100 to $150. The deep-water men found 

 this river property of great use as a nursery for seed, and as a place to make temporary deposits 

 of surplus stock, &c. The Quinepiac thus began to bristle with boundary stakes, much as the 

 harbor had done for many years previous, and many of these river lots are now valued at more 

 than $500. 



"In 1877 a very full set was obtained everywhere in the river and harbor; in 1878, however, 

 there was almost a total dearth ; but 1879 again saw a partial set. 



' ; PRESENT CONDITION OF OYSTER CULTURE IN THE VICINITY OF NEW HAVEN. Situated on 

 the western shore, the township of Orange (West Haven) owns the western half of the harbor of 

 New Haven. These shores have always been populous with oysters, which were raked as public 

 property. If any attempts at cultivation were made until within a few years, they were desultory 



