i) 
Every dollar due to the State was collected and paid into its Treasury, 
amounting in the whole to the sum of $3,681.47, and this without 
resorting to legal measures in a single instance. 
No pains were spared by the Commissioners in the preparation of 
the requisite blanks, and due notice of the tax was given to all parties 
liable, with ample time to fill out the blanks and return them to the 
office. Yet a large number of owners failed to return their lists within 
the time required by law. This was doubtless owing ina great degree 
to the novelty of the duty and to ignorance of the law. Notices were 
sent to all delinquents, and before the tax became due and payable 
the lists were completed and a penalty of ten per cent additional to 
the list was imposed on delinquents, pursuant to the requirements of 
the law. Ina few instances obvious attempts were made to conceal 
ownership and evade the tax. The incomplete state of the surveying 
and mapping and the defectiveness of the town designations afforded 
favorable opportunities for such attempts; but it is believed that most, 
if not all, of them were frustrated, and little or nothing has been lost 
to the State. It is due to the great body of oyster-growers of the State 
that the Commissioners should say that when the tax bills became 
due and payable, the greater number of them were promptly paid. 
The rest were collected by dint of repeated notices and personal 
importunities. The management of the details of this business was 
mainly the work of the Commissioners’ Secretary, Mr. Frederick 
Botsford, to whose efficiency these admirable results are largely due. 
The Commissioners confidently believe that the present year’s taxes 
will exceed those of last year by a considerable amount. The whole 
area designated last year will be added to the lists; the value of new 
grounds brought under cultivation will be enhanced ; and the general 
success of the oyster industry must operate to improve the prices of 
grounds everywhere in the Sound. Hence a much larger aggregate 
valuation will appear in the lists, from which a much larger aggregate 
tax will be gathered. 
There is another important fact which bears upon this subject, one 
to which the Commissioners feel constrained to call particular atten- 
tion: By law all owners are required to file with the Commissioners a 
statement, wnder oath, wherein they shall give not only the number of 
acres owned by them, but also she value thereof per acre. With many 
honorable exceptions, the valuations of cultivated grounds have 
been set in the lists at ridiculously small figures. A reasonable 
estimate would unquestionably increase these figures tenfold. A 
comparison of the lists with each other is conclusive of these under- 
