40 
EXHIBIT A. 
STATEMENT OF Ropert H. SpEDDEN, oF SAND GaTEs, ST. MaAry’s 
Coun'ty, MaryLAnp, Mane DECEMBER 5, 1913 
I fought the bill and did what I could against it from the 
first and until the time it was signed by the Governor. After 
it was signed by the Governor and became effective I saw the 
head surveyor, Mr. Earle, in person and asked him what I 
must do. I told him my position and he told me I would have 
to comply with the Haman Act. I told him I wanted protec- 
tion and that I wanted to be law-abiding, and he told me how 
to get out my application. I did this and he came there and 
placed the stakes for me. 
I took up ten acres and my brother, J. B. Spedden, took up 
twenty-five acres. This happened in the spring of 1912. 
About two acres of the ten-acre plot had at one time produced 
oysters, but it was completely depleted; oozy bottom, easy to 
scrape and had been scraped clean. The other eight acres 
were clean mud. In transplanting from another plot I put 
all of the unmarketable oysters that I could on this piece of 
ground, which was a beautiful scatter, I would imagine. These 
oysters were notable because they grew on rocks and stones 
and were easy to catch after transplanting. There were about 
200 bushels of them and were scattered over the depleted two 
acres. I planted these oysters every day, or once or twice a 
week, until Christmas, and I planted one load after Christmas. 
When I went to make an experiment, after planting all fall, in 
the spring we could not find any of the oysters that were 
planted in the fall. Only the last load was intact. The others 
had been removed, presumably by night scraping. ‘Two men 
working all day for me did not get over three bushels. On 
this same tract I planted 700 more bushels on the muddy eight 
acres and apparently the last time I made an experiment there 
there were about one-third of them left. 
On the plot of J. B. Spedden twenty acres were seeded with 
1,100 bushels. The first load was sowed early in the fall. At 
that time Mr. S. M. Jones and myself went there to test the 
