n8 Survey of Oyster Bars, Somerset County, Md. 



NATURAL BAR NOT DEFINED. 



" The Shell Fish Commission is instructed by section 90 of the Haman Oyster Culture Law to 

 exercise its judgment liberally in favor of the natural bars when surveying, charting and buoying them, 

 but other than this the Commission is uninstructed in this important matter. The responsibility of 

 defining a natural bar is placed upon the Commission." 



DEFINITION OF A NATURAL OYSTER BAR. 



DIVERSITY OF OPINION. 



" No definition of a natural oyster bar could be formulated by any man or body of men which would 

 meet with the approval of all parties concerned. Oystermen, as a rule, hold that all bottoms where 

 oysters grow or have grown naturally even though now practically barren of oysters should be consid- 

 ered natural bars. Other citizens of the State who are not directly interested in the oyster business, 

 but interested in the oyster industry from the standpoint of revenue, hold, as a rule, that no bottoms 

 should be excluded from leasing for oyster culture which, by methods known to oyster culturalists, may 

 be made to yield a greater number of oysters than they now produce." 



" It should be evident to every one that neither of these definitions could be adopted by the Com- 

 mission as a working basis for determining which of the grounds surveyed are natural oyster bars." 



THE GOLDSBOROUGH DEFINITION. 



"The definition of a natural bar which very nearly approaches a reasonable and satisfactory 

 compromise between the extreme views given above and which has therefore been adopted by the 

 Commission, is that contained in an opinion rendered by Judge Charles F. Goldsborough in the circuit 

 court for Dorchester County in the July term, 1881, in the case of William T. Windsor and George R. 

 Tood, v. Job T. Moore. It is as follows: 



What then is a natural bar or bed of oysters? It would be a palpable absurdity for the State to 

 attempt to promote the propagation and growth of oysters and to encourage its citizens, by a grant 

 of land, to engage in their culture, if the lands authorized to be taken up were only those upon which 

 oysters do not and can not be made to grow. That there may be lands covered by water in the State 

 where no oysters can be found, but where, if planted, they could be cultivated successfully, may be 

 possible, but, if so, I imagine that their extent must be too limited for them to be of much practical, 

 general advantage for the purposes of such a law as the one under discussion; but there are thousands 

 of acres of hard and shifting sands where oysters not only are not found, but where it would be folly 

 to plant them; and these latter it can not be supposed that the State intended to offer to give away, 

 for the simple reason that the State could not help knowing that nobody would have them. 



Upon the other hand there are large and numerous tracts where oysters of natural growth may 

 be found in moderate numbers, but not in quantities sufficient to make it profitable to catch them, 

 and yet where oysters may be successfully planted and propagated. In my opinion these can not be 

 called natural bars or beds of oysters, within the meaning of the Act of Assembly, and it is just such 

 lands as these that the State meant to allow to be taken up under the provisions of the above-mentioned 

 section of the Act. 



But there is still another class of lands where oysters grow naturally and in large quantities and 

 to which the public are now and have been for many years in the habit of resorting with a view to 

 earning a livelihood by catching this natural growth, and here, I think, is the true test of the whole 

 question. Land can not be said to be a natural oyster bar or bed merely because oysters are scattered 

 here and there upon it, and because if planted they will readily live and thrive there; but whenever 

 the natural growth is so thick and abundant that the public resort to it for a livelihood.it is a- natural 

 oyster bar or bed and comes within the above-quoted restriction in the law, and cannot be located or 

 appropriated by any individual." 



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