132 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
was approved April 14th, 1881, yet by a general act of the same 
legislature, it did not take effect until May rst, 1881, and as 
there was on the part of a portion of the oystermen a bitter op- 
position to the new commission, a grand scramble commenced 
to secure from the town committees all the good grounds possi- 
ble, before the act should take effect. In this way, about 40,000 
acres were designated by town committees before May 1st, and 
as this was necessarily done in the most hurried manner, great 
confusion arose as to the titles of many of the designations. The 
newly appointed commissioners immediately established an of- 
fice in the city of. New Haven, secured a clerk, and soon after 
an engineer, who, with his two assistants does all the surveying 
required by the commission. The first work of the commission 
was to establish the line known as the eye-sight line, which is 
demanded by the first section of the act, and which extends from 
headland to headland along the whole shore of the State. All 
the ground lying north of this line remains as formerly in the 
jurisdiction of the towns, and all south of it to the New York 
line is under State jurisdiction. The line as established with 
one or two amendments in certain localities, was ratified and 
confirmed by the legislature April 26th, 1882. 
Section 3 of the act authorized the commissioners, in behalf of 
the State, to grant perpetual franchises for the planting and cul- 
tivation of shell-fish, in any undesignated grounds within the 
jurisdiction of the State, which were not and had not for ten 
years been natural clam or oyster beds, to any person who had 
lived in the State one year next preceding the date of applica- 
tion. The application and grant were required to be in a form 
approved by the chief justice of the State, and all grants were 
to be recorded in books kept for the purpose. Notices of appli- 
cations were to be sent to the town clerk of the town within the 
meridian lines of which the grounds were located, and if after 
twenty days’ posting, no objections were made, the application 
was returned to the office, and the commissioners for $1.10 per 
acre granted a deed to the applicant. If, on the other hand, ob- 
jections were made, the party objecting paid to the town clerk 
twenty-five cents, filed his written objections, and, at the end of 
twenty days, the application and objections were returned to 
