92 EIGHTH REPORT OF THE 



labor, with possibly the assistance of some member of his family or of a similarly 

 situated "partner." There are many hundreds of these who, by arduous toil, while 

 subjected to constant hardship and exposure, manage to wrest from the sand and 

 mud of our bays and harbors a frugal livelihood for themselves and families. The 

 numbers of this type are constantly increasing. Second, the planter with capital 

 sufficient to enable him to use every device and appliance necessary or convenient 

 to large operations, including the employment of well-manned steamers equipped 

 with steam dredges, Starfish mops, etc., together with extensive oyster houses where 

 oysters are opened or otherwise prepared for shipment, whence the product is sent 

 throughout the country, and indeed to all parts of the civilized world. 



In commencing, or upon enlarging his business, the first care of the planter is 

 to select a tract of land under water which he believes to be unappropriated and 

 suitable for cultivation, marking out the boundaries by stakes or buoys; he then 

 consults the maps and records in the Shellfish Department of the Forest, Fish 

 and Game Commission for the purpose of determining that the lands in question 

 are open to entry. He is now prepared to make his formal written application 

 for a lease from the State, for which blank forms are provided by the Depart- 

 ment, giving, without actual survey, the best possible description of the ground, 

 making oath that the same has not within five years produced naturally sufficient 

 oysters to enable a man by taking them up to make a living, and that he intends, 

 in case a lease is granted, to use the lands for the purpose of shellfish culture 

 only. The application is thereupon filed and advertised during three weeks by 

 posting a notice in each of three places, to wit : in the shellfish office, in the 

 postoffi.ee nearest the location and in the office of the town clerk of the town 

 in which the tract is situated, the time and place of sale of the grant being indi- 

 cated in the notices. At the expiration of the period of advertisement a certificate 

 is prepared, signed and filed by the clerk of the shellfish office that no objection, or 

 that objection, as the case may be, has been made to the granting of a lease. 

 If no valid objection has been received within competent time, the Superin- 

 tendent of Shellfisheries and the Surveyor of Oyster Lands unite in a certificate 

 (they having made any necessary investigation of the ground) that the tract is 

 not, or does not include, a bed of oysters of natural growth. At the shellfish 

 office, upon the appointed time, the grant of the lease of the land for the purpose 

 of shellfish cultivation is offered at public auction and awarded to the highest 

 bidder, the minimum price being twenty-five cents per acre per annum. After 

 the lease has thus been granted, the land is carefully surveyed and the boundaries 



