1882. ] LAWS RELATING TO FISHERIES. 127 
and in case such objections are so filed and forwarded the said 
commissioners, or a majority, shall upon ten days’ notice in writ- 
ing, mailed or personally delivered to all the parties in interest, 
hear and pass upon such objections at the town in which such 
grounds are located as aforesaid, and if such objections are not 
sustained and the area of ground is not, in the opinion of the com- 
missioners, of unreasonable extent, they may for the actual costs of 
surveying and mapping of such grounds, and the further consid- 
eration of one dollar per acre, paid to the said commissioners to be 
by them paid over to the treasurer of the state, grant a perpetual 
franchise for the planting and cultivating shell-fish in such ground 
or in any part of the same in the manner aforesaid, and where no 
such objections are made such grants may be made for the considera- 
tions hereinbefore named. At all hearings authorized by this act 
the said commissioners may, by themselves or their clerk, subpoena 
witnesses and administer oaths as in courts of law. 
Src. 5. The said commissioners shall, previous to the delivery 
of any instrument conveying the right to plant or cultivate shell- 
fish on any of said grounds, make or cause to be made a survey of 
the same, and shall locate and delineate the same, or cause it to be 
located and delineated upon the map aforesaid, and upon receipt 
of said instrument of conveyance the grantee shall at once cause 
the grounds therein conveyed to be plainly marked out by stakes, 
buoys, ranges, or monuments, which stakes and buoys shall be con- 
tinued by the said grantee and his legal representatives, and the 
right to use and occupy said grounds for said purposes shall be 
and remain in said grantee and his legal representatives ; provided, 
that if the grantee or holder of said grounds does not actually use 
and occupy the same for the purposes named, in good faith, within 
five years after the time of receiving such grant, the said commis- 
sioners shall petition the superior court of the county having juris- 
diction over the said grounds to appoint a committee to inquire 
and report to said court as to the use and occupancy of such 
grounds in good faith, and said court shall in such case appoint 
such committee, who, after twelve days’ notice to petitioners and 
respondents, shall hear such petition and report the facts thereon 
to said court, and if it shall appear that said grounds are not used 
and occupied in good faith for the purpose of planting or cultivating 
shell-fish the said court may order that said grounds revert to the 
state, and that ail stakes and buoys marking the same be removed, 
the costs in said petition to be paid at the discretion of the court. 
