258 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
After the oysters were sold in Crisfield, about $ 600 was paid for shucking them, 
and as all public-reef oysters obtainable were then being purchased to fill orders, this 
$600 was so much that the laboring class would never have received had these men 
not planted an oyster. Thus, from a little lot of $550 worth of oysters, the labor 
around Somerset County received for oysters planted, $550; for taking up oysters, 
$630; for shucking, etc., $600; total, $1,780. Since then fewer persons have planted 
oysters, and the majority of those have lost so heavily by depredations, during the 
daytime as well as at night, that they are almost discouraged. 
An interesting attempt was made in 1890 by Messrs. C. A. DnBois & Co., oyster- 
dealers of Annapolis, to grow oysters on 10 acres of very muddy ground situated in 
the Severn River in Anne Arundel County, and during June of that year about 5,000 
bushels of oyster shells were planted at a cost of $250. A set was obtained on these 
shells during the ensuing spawning season, and in the winter of 1891-92 about 3,000 
bushels of oysters were taken from this area and marketed at 45 cents per bushel, 
and about 500 bushels were left on the bed to be removed later. In 1891, 5,000 bushels 
of shells and in 1892 10,000 bushels were planted on this area, but the set obtained 
was very poor. 
The areas of ground situated within creeks less than 100 yards wide or within the 
lines of other property along the foreshores is exceedingly small, and the bedding of 
oysters in those areas is sc insignificant in extent when compared with the extensive 
common oyster fishery of the State as to scarcely merit attention. A few such areas 
are situated in St. Mary and Calvert counties, and probably some in Talbot, Dorches- 
ter, and Somerset counties; but the quantity of oysters marketed from those private 
holdings scarcely exceeds 25,000 bushels annually, and nearly all of that was origi- 
nally obtained from the public reefs. 
It is thus observed that, except what is done in Dorchester County, even the 
simplest and most primitive modes of oyster-culture, the planting or bedding of small 
oysters, is an almost entirely undeveloped resource in Maryland; and in no sense of 
the word as used at present is the small bedding done in the Chesapeake a cultivation, 
and the expression “storing” or “dumping” well illustrates it. A farmer may as well 
plant his corn without first having prepared the ground and then without further care 
or attention or protection from birds or other animals expect to gather a harvest. He 
will be fortunate if able to gather as much corn as he planted, and so may the oyster- 
man if able to take up as many oysters as he deposited. 
Among the factors that have retarded the development of oyster-culture in this 
State might be mentioned the following : The area that a person is permitted to hold is so 
small that under the most favorable conditions the planter can afford to devote only 
a small portion of his time to it ; the tenure is very uncertain and liable to be affected 
without notice by a change in the law or the administration thereof; the distinction 
between a natural reef and a barren bottom is so indefinite that after much attention 
has been paid to a lot, it is likely to be declared a natural reef, and as long as this 
condition of the ground is debatable planting thereon is an enterprise of great risk. 
It requires an investment of energy and labor to properly engage in oyster-culture, 
and these hesitate to touch the lots under the present impossibilities of enlargement 
and the insecurity of tenure. The uncertainty as to what are natural grounds has 
also encouraged certain persons to attempt to locate areas popularly supposed to 
