THE OYSTER INDUSTRY OF MARYLAND. 
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enactment. Some of tlie lots were located as early as 1830, this being the case in Som 
erset County particularly, while in Worcester County the greater number of the pre- 
emptions were made between 1840 and 1850. Immediately following the adoption of 
the 5-acre regulation of 1867, and each year thereafter, a number of locations were 
and have been made. 
The following. table, compiled from the various county records, exhibits the area 
of ground preempted during each year in each of the counties of the State: 
Table exhibiting by counties the number of acres of oyster-planting ground preempted annually in Maryland. 
* Records of Calvert County prior to 1882 were destroyed by fire, 
t About S, 300 acres field under law of 1876, ch. 277, without filing papers. 
Notwithstanding all this ground was ostensibly preempted for the planting of 
oysters, only a small part of it is now in actual use for that purpose. In fact, a large 
portion of it has never been used for planting purposes and was not appropriated with 
that object in view, many lots being located by the owners of the adjacent estates in 
order to prevent outsiders from operating on the margin of their property. 
Some of the lots have, through error or otherwise, been located two or more times, 
and the descriptions filed are not always such as would give a surveyor a correct 
understanding of their locations, they frequently surrounding the lots with almost 
every impossible engineering description. 
The scene of the most extensive oyster-planting in Maryland is not in the Chesa- 
peake region, but on the shores of Worcester County in the Sinepuxent Bay. This is 
the only water area in Maryland not tributary to the Chesapeake, being on the ocean 
side of the Eastern Shore or “Mavirdel” peninsula, and emptying directly into the 
ocean. The planting of oysters in these waters originated on a small scale in 1842; 
but the extent on which it was then conducted was almost insignificant, the product 
being utilized entirely in the local trade. 
About 1875 the rapidly diminishing product of the public beds in these waters led 
to an extension of the planting industry, which quickly increased until 1880, which 
was probably the most successful season known in the planting industry of the county 
as regards the profits of the persons engaged. From that time the industry decreased 
