Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 39 
the quantity of food they contain but the results of the few 
examinations made indicate that there are few places, if any, 
along the entire Atlantic Coast where oyster food is more 
plentiful than it was last summer in the upper part of the 
Patuxent River. The richness of the available food supply 
in the Patuxent is probably to be attributed to the presence 
of the large area of muddy bottoms in the river and to the 
organic materials brought down from the marl beds above. 
The mud and mar! contains a considerable quantity of decay- 
ing organic material which induces a rapid multiplication and 
growth of the microscopic plants (oyster food) which live at 
and near the surface of the bottom. 
The area of bottom in the section of the river belonging 
to Calvert County which after examination was found not 
sufficiently productive of oysters to be charted and buoyed 
as natural oyster bar, aggregates 2,583 acres. Adjoining 
these exhausted bottoms is an almost equal quantity of bar- 
ren bottom which is well adapted to the needs of oyster 
culture. The bottoms available for lease for oyster culture 
are well distributed along the entire shore of the river, as 
may be noted by reference to Charts Nos. 19 and 20, and 
every one residing along the river who desires to lease bot- 
a for oyster culture will have an opportunity to secure 
them. 
CHESAPEAKE BAY, 
(Shown on Charts of Natural Oyster Bars, Nos. 16, 17, 18 and 19.) 
The natural oyster bars? found in this section are fifteen 
in number and aggregate an area of 8,834 acres. They were 
formerly much greater in extent and productiveness than now, 
but on account of the excellent quality of the oysters pro- 
duced the bars have been dredged with unusual thorough- 
ness with the result that very considerable parts of them are 
now so barren of both oysters and shells that it would 
probably require a period of time as long as that during which 
the bars were originally developed for them to be restocked 
by nature. 
The area of depleted bottom which has been opened for 
leasing as a result of the survey covers about 5,089 acres. 
In addition to this there are about 4,000 acres of barren bot- 
1See table on page 43. 
