FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 1 63 



under the ground. As this point was upon the lawn of property now owned by 

 Mrs. Le Roy Dresser, this Department utilized, for the purpose of marking the 

 spot, a flagpole which has long been in possession of the Commission. 



This pole constitutes an admirable monument (" Ludlum 3") which can be 

 seen in different directions and for a considerable distance over the water. The 

 pole was firmly and permanently set in a stone and cement foundation. Then 

 Mr. Wyeth, Surveyor of Oyster Lands, by means of mensuration and plumb, located 

 down the bank the proper position of the United States signal ("Ludlum 2") and 

 there drove down a piece of iron pipe six feet in length, so preserving this United 

 States Government point. 



3tate Control. 



The better conditions of the shellfish industry and the increased production 

 under State control was shown by your Superintendent in his report for the year 

 1901, published in the Seventh Report, from which I quote as follows: 



From comparatively small beginnings the urgent necessities of the rapidly 

 expanding industry of shellfish cultivation led, a few years ago, to the adoption 

 by the State of a system of control of lands under the public waters suitable for 

 the business; a system which includes a unification of laws; an elaborate plan of 

 surveys, based upon the triangulations of the United States Coast Survey; the 

 establishment of numerous intermediate coast signals and the preparation of neces- 

 sary and carefully prepared maps and charts, together with grants of leases and 

 franchises under well-defined boundaries. Thus has the older plan of control by 

 localities, so palpably inadequate, been outgrown. 



The obsolete local plan contemplated a right to the farmer or citizen, whose 

 lands happened to be adjacent to or near a bay or sound, to take possession of 

 a small piece of land under' water, in size ranging from the fractional part 

 of an acre to three acres, upon which he might dredge or rake a few bushels of 

 shellfish for domestic consumption, or upon which the bayman owning a small 

 boat could dredge the natural-growth oysters for the market. The laws of a 

 given locality were sure to differ with those of every other locality, the point of 

 greatest resemblance being that these rights were confined to residents of the 

 particular town or community. 



In one large bay the land granted to an individual was limited to three acres, 

 at an annual rental of five dollars per aGre, while in another bay the limit was 

 five acres at three dollars per acre, an effort always being made to increase the 

 revenues of the town or community by the income from these grants, while noth- 

 ing was done by the town to protect its lessees in their rights. No hydrographic 

 surveys were made. Lessees fixed their own stakes or buoys marking the. bound- 

 aries of the lots. These marks being constantly removed by tides, ice and storms, 

 led- to contentions between adjacent owners. Larceny of planted shellfish was a 



