; 23 
five-acre holdings above referred to. In 1907, 564 acres; in 
1908, 62 acres; in 1909, 184 acres; in 1910, 236 acres; in 1911, 
174 acres. Meanwhile a number of leases were canceled, either 
for non-payment of rent or because the holder believed it not 
worth their while to continue under existing conditions, so 
that on December 31, 1911, there were probably less than 1,000 
acres under lease. 
The comparative unimportance of the results secured was 
due to two causes. In the first place, only a portion of the area 
of the State was open for lease during this time, the final 
charts not being filed until the spring of 1912. More serious 
than this, however, was the fact that the restrictions upon the 
planter written into the Haman Bill by its opponents made 
planting so unattractive that those who would otherwise have 
engaged in it did not care to take up land. 
In the Legislative session of 1912 a determined fight was 
made to remove the restriction upon planting and to increase 
the acreage which a man might take up. As a result of this 
agitation, the Legislature enacted the Price-Campbell Bill, 
which increased the possible holdings of a lessee to thirty 
acres in the tributaries, 100 acres in Tangier Sound and 500 
acres in the Bay; permitted the individual lessee to take up 
his oysters for the purpose of working and transplanting over 
a longer period, on notice, however, to the captain of the near- 
est oyster police boat, and also permitted him to handle his 
oysters with a dredge, without regard to the question as to 
whether or not his territory was located in tonging area. This 
Act also provided that the Commissioners should have power 
to reduce the rentals below the scale adopted in the Haman 
Bill on all applications filed or leases granted after the Ist 
of April, 1913. The Act did not, however, permit corporate 
holdings or the use of power in the cultivation of oyster 
bottom. 
As a result of this Act of 1912, there was an immediate in- 
crease in the applications received by the Commissioners and 
during the year 1912, 994 acres were placed under lease. 
During the winter of 1912-1913 the Commission considered 
the question of a reduction of rental and after consultation 
with oystermen and with friends of the oyster-culture move- 
