Virginia citizen. (Irvington, Va.) 1891-1921, 1910-03-04
CRITICS NOT POSTED.


CITIZEN or its editor, but it is
charity to concede that our con-
temporary would not altogether
tear it's shirt" unless it had at
leastsmall grounds, or believed it
had. Our charity in the present
instance is extended still further
and we admit that its verbose
rantings last week are because it
has never read the provisions of
the Byrd Wickham James river
bill, published in the press in full
when introduced.
There is no apostasy Ga pet
phrase with the Montross end in
our having fought the Jordan
bill and now advocating the
James river bill. One was to let
down the bars throughout Vir-
ginia-in most parts of which we
can still patrol by reasonable
Baylor lines. The Byrd bill is to
establish q Baylor Survey in
James river where none exists,
and in that way preserve for the
tonger and the people the seed
grounds, without which preserva-
ton our industry is gone.
A few mistaken ideas of these
deluded, or malicious, critics of
ours might be here shown:
% They say thousands of acres
OF rocks will be thrown out.
This is q pet tune, but is a false
one. OF the 5000 acres in the
Survey i'll James river, twenty
thousand of them are utterly
worthless to the tonger. Of the
four thousand to be excluded in
order to establish proper police
lines not two hundred could be
used by the tonger, and these
two hundred are already in
stakes of encroaching planters.
Even with these actual figures
from a careful survey we have
no hope but that the little fry,
along with the Newport News
Press and Norfolk Virginian-
Pilot, will continue to charge
that it is intended to "throw out
thousands of acres of rock"
90 1t is impossible to enlarge
the survey and take in ground
outside the mythical BAYLOR lines
Tor the purpose of strengthening,
because the ground outside has
been leased to planters mot by
this Commission but by its prede-
cessors under authority of State
law, and no court would sane
ton invasion of those vested
rights. This difficulty has been
explained to the critics, but they
ignore conditions.
(3) A weakling suggests mark
ing and maintaining the original
lines without change. Even the
imported engineer and witnesses
Tor the opposition confessed it
would be impossible to locate
and maintain forty lines and cor
ners, some OF them in $50 feet of
water. There has never existed
orbeen observed any BAYLOR lines
IN the James, and the present
commission has kept free from
depreciation a larger zone (pure
guess-work at that) than ever
before.
Now, we want to disabuse the
minds OF these far-off small fry.
that don't read bills or know
what they are writing of, about
the foregoing and some other
facts to be found in this is
sue OF the CITIZEN. Not that il /
Will be OF any use, because thew
don't want to see Alright, but |
maybe their consciences will hurt |
them when a few years later they |
md our trade gone to other
states because we cannot protect
our seed beds, and many of our
people facing starvation.
TOshOw how little our Warsaw
contemporary knows what it is
writlng about we quote from it:
is there single word in the pro-
posed legislation which proposes to add
one acre of natural rock to the survey?
Naturally not, because, inasmuch as the
LOO OF waters as naturally reseeds a
depleted rock as he does an abandoned
huckleberry hillside, etc.
Taking the astconteption first
1T is a well-known fact that while
nearly all depleted rocks in Vir-
glnla will recuperate, this is not
True OF the seed beds of the James,
once thoroughly depleted, the|
mud and silt that comes down
every spring hides the dead shells
ana not a spat can catch thereon
unless the mud is removed byjs
mans hand or the ground is
sheiled. That is why there re.
mains today but five Thousand
acres of bearing bottom there
The other contention is an.
swered by quoting this provision
OF the the Byrd bill:
Said Commission shall designate and
accurately define any productive or re-
cuperating natural oyster beds, rocks.
or shoals, without the lines of the State
geodetic survey, and which is not taken
up Tor planting purposes which in the
opinion of said Commission it would he
advisable to embrace within the said /,
geodetic survey.
The Commission of Fisheries ia I.
hereby empowered and directed to have ,
the natural beds, rocks, or shoals.
known as Gum rock, in York river. in ,
the county of York, marked and plated