THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF MARYLAND. 
BY CHARLES H. STEVENSON. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Few branches of the American fisheries have been the subject of so much discus- 
sion and are so little understood as the oyster industry of the State of Maryland. 
For fully eighty years this fishery, by reason of its condition and importance, has 
demanded the attention of the tide- water residents of that State, and at nearly every 
session of the Maryland general assembly since 1820 it has been one of the most fruitful 
subjects for legislative enactments; yet a system of regulation satisfactory either to 
the oystermen or to the State at large has not been established, and at no previous 
time in the history of the fishery has it received the amount of attention as at present. 
A discussion of this industry is especially interesting because it is the most 
extensive and valuable oyster fishery in the world. In European countries and in 
the majority of the oyster-producing States of America the food market receives the 
greater portion of its supplies from private grounds, the regulations governing the 
common or free fisheries being largely subsidiary to the needs of the industry on the 
private areas. Maryland, however, has persistently refused to encourage an extensive 
development of private oyster fisheries, devoting instead all its energies toward con- 
serving and protecting the free fishery on the public domain. 
The purpose of this paper is to discuss all branches of the oyster industry of 
Maryland, from the operations of the oystermen to the preparation of the marketable 
products, the investigation being chiefly from an industrial point of view. Brief but 
complete notice is taken of the regulations that have surrounded the industry since 
its inception, as it exhibits the constant efforts made by a people during a period of 
seventy years to preserve the prosperity of a common fishery. Reference is made for 
the first time to the planting or bedding operations conducted in the Sinepuxent Bay, 
and the small business done in this line in other portions of the State. Only the 
actual and relative conditions of the industry in its various branches are discussed, 
and no attempt is made to add to the interest or volume of the paper by describing 
the -many unique and novel methods and customs prevalent in certain localities, unless 
the same have some bearing upon the prosperity of the industry. 
Probably no State in the Union has for its area so great an inland water-surface 
as Maryland. Of the twenty-three counties in this State, the oyster fishery is prose- 
cuted from eleven, in which, because of the innumerable tributaries of the Chesa- 
peake extending into the land, there are few localities removed a greater distance than 
6 miles from navigable water, thus bringing all the residents into close contact with 
the fisheries. The total population in 1890 of these eleven counties was 219,307, and 
205 
