FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSIONER. 119 



prepared to make his formal written application for a lease from the State, 

 for which blank forms are provided by the Department, giving without 

 actual survey, the best possible description of the ground, making oath 

 that the same lias 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 shell- 

 fish 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 shell- 

 fish office, in the post office 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 indicated 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 superintendent 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 shell- 

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

 the pui*pose of shellfish cultivation is offered at public auction and is 

 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 marked by the State Surveyor of 

 Oyster Lands, who plots the tract upon the maps of the office and fur- 

 nishes an accurate description for the purposes of the deed of lease which 

 is then prepared, executed by the Commission and delivered to the lessee. 

 Only inhabitants of the State may become original lessees or hold by 

 assignment of lease.'* 



Propagation of Oysters. 



The propagation and cultivation of oysters are practically two very 

 different processes, and the distinction between them should be constantly 

 kept in mind while considering the methods of the oyster farmer. Oyster 

 propagation is a simple and interesting operation in the laboratory, but 

 it has not yet been carried on upon a scale sufficiently extensive to be of 

 importance to the planter. 



