Report of the Board of Shell Fish Commissioners. 11 
‘What then is a natural bar of bed of oysters? It would be a palpable 
absurdity for the State to attempt to promote the propagation and growth of 
oysters and to encourage its citizens, by grant of land, to engage in their culture, 
if the lands authorized to be taken up were only those upon which oysters do not 
and cannot be made to grow. That there may be lands covered by water in the 
State where no oysters can be found, but where, if planted, they could be eulti- 
vated successfully, may be possible, but, if so, I imagine that their extent must 
be too limited for them to be of much practical, general advantage for the pur- 
poses of such a law as the one under discussion; but there are thousands of ucres 
of hard and shifting sands where oysters not only are not found, but where it 
would be folly to plant them; and these latter it can not be supposed that the 
State intended to offer to give away, for the simple reason that the State could 
not help knowing that nobody would have them. 
Upon the other hand there are large and numerous tracts where oysters of 
natural growth may be found in moderate numbers, but not in quantities sufficient 
to make it profitable to catch them; and yet where oysters may be successfully 
planted and propagated. In my opinion these can not be ealled natural bars or 
beds of oysters, within the meaning of the Act of Assembly, and it is just such 
lands as these that the State meant to allow to be taken up under the provisions 
of the above-mentioned section of the Act. 
But there is still another class of lands where oysters grow naturally and in 
large quantities and to which the public are now and have been for many years 
in the habit of resorting with a view to earning a livelihood by catching this 
natural growth; and, here, I think, is the true test of the whole question. Land 
cannot be said to be a natural oyster bar or bed merely because oysters are 
seattered here and there upon it, and because if 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 appro- 
priated by any individual.’’ 
APPLICATION OF DEFINITION. 
Before this definition may be of use in determining; accur- 
ately and scientifically, the status of an oyster ground, its 
central idea, ‘‘ livelihood,’’ must be expanded into accurately 
determinable factors and these factors must be combined into 
a practical scheme for investigating the condition of the 
grounds under consideration. 
Stated briefly, a livelihood is represented by a sum of 
money obtained from the sale, at a fixed price, of a certain 
quantity of oysters gathered in a given time from an allotted 
area of ground. 
