THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF MARYLAND. 
2B1 
Each and every license to take or catch oysters for sale, with rakes or tongs, shall state the name, 
age, and residence of the person to whom the same is to be granted, the number, and the county in 
which the same is to be used, and every applicant for such license shall pay to the clerk of the court 
when such license may be granted and before the issuing and delivery of the same, the sum of $3, and 
also the sum of 50 cents as a fee to the clerk for issuing the same. Nine-tenths of the amount received 
from tongiug licenses shall be paid by the clerk to the school commissioners for the public schools in 
the respective counties where such licenses are issued ; the sum received from white tongers to go to 
the white schools, and the sum received from the colored tongers to go to the colored schools. 
Every applicant, for license to take or catch oysters with rakes or tongs shall be required to make 
oath or affirmation before the clerk authorized to issue the same, or some justice of the peace, on whose 
certificate of the taking of such oath or affirmation the clerk shall issue said license, that the facts 
set forth in said license are strictly true ; that he has been a bona-fide resident of the county for twelve 
months next preceding his application for said license; that he desires and intends to use said license 
in the county in which he resides, or the waters used in common, as hereinbefore provided in this 
article, and that he will comply with and obey all the laws of this State regulating the taking or 
catching of oysters. 
The comptroller of the treasury shall cause to be printed and delivered to the clerk of the circuit 
courts for the several counties the requisite number of such blank licenses and take receipts for the 
same as for other licenses furnished; and said clerk shall, on the first Monday of March and Decem- 
ber of each year, return to the comptroller a list and account of such licenses issued by them, and at the 
end of each tonging season shall return all unused licenses to him, and shall pay over to the comptroller 
one-tenth of the amount received by him for such licenses, which amount the said comptroller shall 
place to the credit of the “ oyster fund; ” and no license to take or catch oysters with rake or tong 
shall be used on any boat or vessel which is licensed to take or catch oysters with scoop, drag, dredge, 
or similar instrument, during the season for which such boat or vessel is licensed, and all licenses shall 
expire at the end of the season. 
If any person shall use any canoe or boat not licensed as required by the preceding sections of 
this article in taking or catching oysters with rakes or tongs, he shall, upon conviction thereof before 
a justice of the peace for the county wherein the offense has been committed, be fined not less than 
$20 nor more than $100 ; and in case of refusing to pay the said fine, said party shall be confined in the 
house of correction for a period of not less than three months nor more than one year, and in any such 
case the boat or vessel shall be forfeited, and may be condemned, in the discretion of the judge or 
justice of the peace. 
Making a careful calculation, it is found that the total product of the tonging 
branch of the common fishery since the beginning of the present century, not including 
the small stock used for lime or fertilizing purposes or those obtained by the citizens 
of other States, approximates 160,000,000 bushels, for which the tongmen have received 
about $47,000,000. Of this amount the estimated product since the adoption of the 
license system in 1865 is 100,000,000 bushels, valued at $32,000,000, leaving 60,000,000, 
valued at $15,000,000, as the catch from 1801 to 1864. The largest catch by means of 
tongs during any one season was doubtless in 1884^85, when 4,741 boats were licensed 
in the Chesapeake region alone, the product, according to the best estimates, amounting 
to about 6,500,000 bushels, valued at $2,375,000. But as the number of men oystering 
during that season was greater than ever before or since, the average catch per man was 
very much less than during some previous years. 
The total revenue derived from the issuing of tonging licenses since 1865 and 
to the close of the fiscal year 1893 amounts to $319,175.65 ; of this sum $173,316.50 has 
been received during the last ten years and $109,737.50 during the last five years. 
The following table exhibits the number of tonging licenses issued in each of the 
counties up to present date. It is proper to state that during certain seasons since 
1876 many of the tongmen of Somerset County have refused to license. This has been 
due chiefly to the contention as to the right of oystering in common with the citizens 
of Virginia in the Pocomoke, and the Somerset tongmen, when feeling themselves 
especially aggrieved, have refused to pay the license fees. 
