15 
quated or inefficient modes of cultivation established a set of 
conditions which (added to grave doubts in the minds of many 
as to whether the State would afford adequate protection to 
the lessee) rendered any development of planting upon a large 
scale extremely improbable. 
Without the development of planting upon a large scale 
the revenues which had been promised the inland counties 
would not be forthcoming, and it would be only a question of 
time until the support which the inland counties had given 
to the scheme would be weakened or lost by its apparent fail- 
ure to produce the promised results. 
Another open question in the formulation of the program 
was decided in what might seem now to be the wrong way, 
certainly, as events have developed, it has entailed on the State 
a tremendous expenditure with results of somewhat dubious 
value. The Commission created by the Act was charged with 
the duty of determining the nature of the bottom underlying 
the navigable waters of the State. This determination was 
solely for the sake of determining the area which was open 
to lease and the area which was to be withheld from leasing 
because it came within the adopted definition of a natural bar. 
Two methods were open, one was to follow the precedent set 
in previous oyster-leasing laws and permit any citizen of the 
State to make an application for any particular piece of ground, 
after the application determine the character of the ground, 
and if it were found barren issue the lease, which should be 
conclusive evidence thereafter as to the character of the bot- 
tom at the time of the leasing. This, coupled with provisions 
for proper publication of the application and for appeal from 
decisions of the Commission, would have safeguarded the 
natural bars and provided for a gradual survey of the land 
underlying our saline waters, while the determination in each 
particular case would have been made at the time the land 
was transferred from public to private control. It would, how- 
ever, have necessitated the continued employment of a sur- 
veying force and would have left the applicant in doubt in 
any case as to whether he could or could not secure a given 
tract of land until the matter had been adjudicated for that 
individual tract. ‘The State chose the other alternative, how- 
