8 
to the people of the State; its working was a privilege and 
the exercise of this privilege was rigidly restricted to residents 
of Maryland. The right to appropriate land for the purpose of 
bedding oysters was not regarded in any sense as a develop- 
ment of the land so appropriated into a natural oyster bed. 
The land appropriated was regarded, on the contrary, merely 
as a storehouse or fattening-pen for oysters taken from the 
natural beds and its use was a mere incident of the right to 
work the natural bed and therefore rigidly restricted to cit- 
izens of Maryland. 
This view of the Lan meanG land as a mere fattening-pen 
is further indicated by the fact that on the death of the lessee 
the land in question did not pass to his heirs or personal rep- 
resentatives, who were allowed merely sufficient time to bring 
the oysters already planted upon it to maturity, after which 
time the land again reverted to its original condition. The 
law is silent as to whether the land was or was not thereafter 
to be regarded as natural bar, the apparent presumption be- 
ing that the land would be stripped bare by the lessee or by 
his personal representatives before reversion to the State. 
The second of these ideas was fear of monoply in the oyster 
business. ‘The actual working oysterman, as a rule, is a man 
of limited business experience and very limited financial re- 
sources. Occasionally, he is able to own and equip a dredge 
boat, but more frequently he is assisted in this by some one 
connected with the packing industry, who thus acquires at 
least a partial control over the disposition of the catch. The 
necessity of finding a nearby market for their catch (in order 
to return again to the beds and utilize the weather during 
which oystering is possible) makes the tongers, who more 
frequently own their own boat and equipment, and those 
dredgers who have not been financed by packing interests 
largely dependent upon the local packing houses or upon larger 
vessels known as “buy-boats,” which cruise among the oyster 
beds and transport the catch to the larger packing centers. 
The oystermen, dreading an increase of the packing domina- 
tion, saw in'the right to appropriate bottom for bedding pur- 
poses an opportunity for the packing houses to provide for 
themselves a relatively constant and reliable supply of stock 
