280 FIFTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



to a flat tax of twenty-five cents per annum per acre. All lands leased, 

 under the present system, for shellfish cultivation are therefore now paying 

 to the State two and a quarter dollars per acre every year. The question 

 of a possible increase in the revenues would seem at this time to exclude the 

 shellfish planter upon whom a higher charge would no doubt prove burden- 

 some. In cases where it may appear that special tracts of land are, consid- 

 ering all the surrounding facts, worth more than the usual rate, the power 

 is already given to classify such lands in accordance with their values and 

 dispose of them accordingly. The search for an increased income should 

 rather be directed to other subjects such as are utilized elsewhere for revenue 

 purposes but with us escape all payment to the State. In other jurisdictions 

 considerable sums are collected by way of license fees from net fishermen, 

 lobster fishermen and fishing vessels. Under our law only nonresident 

 salt-water net fisherman are charged a license fee. Residents using vessels 

 of fifty tons or upward for the purpose of taking menhaden or moss-bunkers 

 from which to manufacture oil and fertilizers are charged a fee but otherwise 

 it is provided by the law, " No license shall be required from citizens of this 

 State for the purpose of fishing for migratory food fish of the sea." This 

 exempts practically all the net and market fishermen doing business along 

 our coasts from any payment to the State. 



Sanitary Conditions in Oyster Beds 



From the time the first legislative measure looking to a careful examina- 

 tion of the State oyster beds under the direction of the State Board of 

 Health was drafted in this Department (session of 1905) until the present 

 there has been much discussion of the sanitary question until the impor- 

 tance of the matter has become well understood in every shellfish producing 

 State. At the time of writing the annual report for 1908 your superintend- 

 ent submitted a brief account of the bacteriological and sanitary work 

 which had been performed, at his request during that year, by the State 

 Department of Health, though the report of the State Commissioner of 

 Health had not at that time been received. Shortly afterward the report 

 of the Commissioner of Health came to hand and fully described the magni- 

 tude of the work which had been placed upon his Department. 



