Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-02-18
Friday. February IS. 1910
FACTS IN OYSTER MATTERS.

We would say to our esteemed
Warsaw contemporary anent its
leading editorial last week that
it is partly correct and partly
wrong in its views. The Commits
sion of Fisheries is "backstand-
ing" Speaker Byrd's James river
oyster bill, because it is the Com
missions bill of two years ago,
passed by the State Senate unan-
lmously and lost in the last DAYS
OF the House by a tie vote. While
the patron is Mr.. Byrd, it is not
the bill he first contemplated in-
PRODUCING and which he an
nOunced would "break the Bay
Tor Survey" He was persuaded
out OF that, and this present bill
for Observation-Disclosures "break-
ing-theBaylor Survey in James
river, was accepted by him as a
compromise through persuasion.
If those at u distance who op-
pose the bill could get the facts
into their heads we are sure they
would be as fair and open as
those hundreds who came to
Richmond opposed to it were
when, after seeing the chart and
hearing the argument, unani-
mously endorsed the proposition
to accept it as the only feasible
method OF preserving the oyster
rocks III James river to the
tonger. The bill seeks to affect
no other lines, except to restore
to the public tonger large rock
in York river that was left out
OF the Baylor Survey.
Pertinent facts are these: To-
day there are no lines or marks
OF the survey i'll the James, nor
could u half dozen OF its forty
lines and corners be established
or maintained-a condition that
exists nowhere else in the State
TO such an extent. The police
officers have to guess at the lines,
and take the stakes of encroach-
ing planters as boundaries. These
planters, Ill places, are holding
unlawfully ground even inside OF
the proposed new lines, but can.
not be driven back because no
court will act where the lines are
underlined. To establish the lines
with corners i'll shoal places where
buoys and watch-houses can be
maintained is not a breaking OF
the survey. 1t is like putting up
fences on firm ground around "a
field bounded by gullies in which
lie the old fences tumbled down.
The 'gullies" are of no service:
neither are the mythical and
vanished lines of Captain Baylor
IN the James river seed grounds.
With well defined lines-six
straight ones-thousands ofacres
held for years by planters with
out tax will be recovered to the
tonger, and the depleted area
experimental upon for restora-
tion by the officials. In the James.
as IN no other river, depleted
areas soon cover with mud and
silt when work ceases upon them,
and unless this is worked off
these particular bottoms will
never recuperate.
Ii this is breaking" the BAYLOR
Survey in the common accepta-
ton OF the term, then the farmer
is a fool to set up any fence
washed out by gully. Not a
loot of the ground thrown out,
even on Browns Shoal, has been
used by the tonger for years.
The Commission of Fisheries
has put itself on record as
against doing away with the
Baylor Survey or renting out an
acre OF the tongers' working
ground, and the two Tidewater
members have twenty years
record on this score, and it is not
fair or just to impugn their mo-
tives, with this knowledge and
testimony of public note, when
they offer administrative RENE
dies in the work that experience.
heart and energy are devoted to.