17 
planted they will readily live and thrive there, but whenever 
the natural growth is so thick and abundant that the public 
resort to it for a livelihood, it is a natural oyster bar or bed 
and comes within the above-quoted restriction in the law and 
cannot be located or appropriated by any individual.” 
This definition was a reasonable medium between the ex- 
treme view of oystermen who held that no ground should be 
open to lease where oysters were then or had previously been 
growing, and the other extreme view of the most pronounced 
advocates of oyster culture who held that no ground should 
be excluded from leasing whose yield could be increased by 
artificial cultivation. 
There were, however, for the purposes of a survey, certain 
weaknesses in the Goldsborough definition, namely, its lack 
of sufficient definiteness to enable a surveyor to mark out the 
limits of a natural bar and its reliance upon the history of the 
bar rather than upon a scientific determination of its present 
condition. The Goldsborough definition was perfect for the 
purposes for which it was devised, the determination by oral 
testimony in open court whether a specific area was included 
within the natural-bar territory. It was inadequate for the 
work before the Commission, the determination by a hard- 
and-fast line upon a chart of the boundary at which natural 
bar ceased and barren bottom began. For this purpose some 
modification of the Goldsborough definition was essential. 
Under it, applied strictly, the Commission could have done 
nothing more than cal! in witnesses who would testify as to 
the extent to which the public had resorted to the given 
ground. That this was not the intent of the Legislature is 
evidenced by the fact that the Commission was given no power 
to compel the attendance of witnesses or even to administer 
an oath. 
The first problem therefore before the Commission was to 
translate the Goldsborough definition, suited as it was to the 
courtroom, into a definition suitable for field work. ‘The first 
step was to define the natural bar as a portion of bottom hay- 
ing at the present time, or giving prospect of giving in the 
near future, a sufficient growth of oysters upon it to justify the 
public in resorting to it for a livelihood. The next step was 
