has had a hard struggle to make both ends meet, it has, as a result of its efforts, notwithstanding the restrictions of the present law, met all of its obligations, came out more than even on expenses, and still has on hand its patrol boats, office furniture, and that character of permanent investment, representing an available capital of about ($5,000.00) Five Thousand Dollars, including the cash on hand. During the first season, extending from September 1, 1902, to August 31, 1903, the Commission issued licenses to 1574 boats and vessels, 1953 tongmen, 27 dealers, 3 canners. The quantity of oysters marketed during that period equaled four hundred and seventy-two thousand one hundred and ninetyone (472,191) barrels or one million six hundred and seventeen thousand and forty-four (1,617,044) bushels valued at over seven hundred thousand dollars ($700,000.00). From August II, 1902 to January 31, 1904, the total revenues of the Commission were $36,816.15 and its disbursements during the same period of seventeen and one-half months were $36,148.96, which included the cost of a permanent investment of about four thousand dollars ($4,000.00) now on hand in the shape of patrol boats and other equipment. In 18 years under the old laws there had been made. 512 oyster bedding ground leases aggregating 2820.52 acres, or an average of 7.6 acres per lease. In the 18 months of the Commission's existence 238 leases, aggregating 2677.10 acres were made. In other words, the Commission has leased in 18 months nearly as many acres as were leased in the previous 18 years.

As previously stated, the Commission caused all existing bedding ground leases to be registered in its office. A limit of time was fixed within which tenants should so register their leases, and as a result of this registration it developed that from 1886 to 1902, there had been as stated 512 continuous leases of oyster bedding ground made, covering a total area of 2820.52 acres, or an average of 7.6 acres per lease. The Commission found that the State owns between five and six million acres of water bottom more or less suitable for oyster cultivation. Of these, less than 50,000 acres are covered by reefs where oysters grow naturally. About 2800 acres were under lease and the balance of over five and one half million acres were lying idle. The leases made by the police juries and registered with the Commission are shown in detail in the Secretary's report. No lands whatsoever were under lease in the parishes of Orleans, St. Mary, Iberia, Vermilion or Cameron. The Commission has done its best to increase the area of bedding grounds rented for the purpose of oyster cultivation, as it recognized that each acre rented meant an increase of

the State's revenue of at least $3.00 per annum, and yet owing to the restrictions of the present oyster law, it has succeeded in leasing since Aug. 11, 1902, less than 3000 acres, although it is reliably informed, and has every reason to believe that an immense quantity of this idle barren lands could be leased and brought into cultivation, if legislation were had which would tend to encourage the investment of capital in this industry and protect it when once invested.

The Commission finds that the oyster industry as it is carried on to-day, consists almost exclusively in an absolute dependence on the product of the natural oyster reefs for our oyster supply. The experience of other States, as found in the studies made by the Commission, indicate this to be a most unwise policy. We know of no industry where dependence is had entirely upon the natural wild product. We know that one acre of water bottom under cultivation will, at the very minimum, produce 100 barrels of oysters per annum, and we know further that the last annual oyster crop was less than half a million barrels. From this it conclusively follows that the total oyster crop of Louisiana for the past season could have been produced on a 5000 acre oyster farm properly cultivated. The Oyster Commission is alive to the immense possibilities of oyster production possessed by Louisiana. We know that oysters will grow in our warm Southern waters about three times as rapidly as they will grow on the Atlantic Coast.

Possessing these natural advantages, the only thing that stands between our oyster industry and development, the Commission finds to be the illogical restrictions, which for twenty years past have been embodied in our successive oyster laws. These restrictions have arisen through an ignorance of the true facts, and now that we know how unwise these provisions are, they should immediately be removed from the statutes. Your Commission, during the past two years of its existence, has necessarily been compelled to take the oyster law as it is, no matter how imperfect it has found it to be.

One of the chief aims of the Commission has been its desire to aid in every way it could those engaged in the oyster industry, and wherever complaints or suggestions have been made they have had our earnest consideration.

Learning that vessels entering the Mississippi River en route from Texas were accustomed to pump out their bilges and discharge fuel oil in the river, which, during periods of high water, was carried over the banks of the river into the oyster fields on each side, the co-operation of the Secretary of War of the

United States was sought and a stop was put to this injurious practice.

The assistance of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey was secured in the matter of establishing township and range points on our coast in order that our oyster bedding grounds, as surveyed, might be connected up with these well established points. This service has been of great value to the Com

mission.

As an excess of fresh water is fatal to oyster life, we sent our Attorney, Mr. John Dymond, Jr., to St. Louis, to appear before the Mississippi River Commission in June, 1903, in order that the value of the oyster interests protected by our levee system might be laid before that body and fully explained. The result of Mr. Dymond's visit was an increased allotment of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000.00) in two years for the levees below the City of New Orleans, which will prove of incalculable benefit to the oyster growers of that section, where, by the high water of 1903, over one million dollars ($1,000,000.00) worth of oysters were killed in a period of ten days.

Your Commission appreciates the importance of the litigation now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States between the States of Louisiana and Mississippi as to our State's boundary in the waters of the parish of St. Bernard. The area in dispute has a value of between five million and ten million dollars. We have been offered the sum of two hundred thousand dollars ($200,000.00) per annum rental for the exclusive use of the oyster waters there. The area undoubtedly belongs to Louisiana and we have been rendering all the assistance we can to the State's attorneys to win the case.

In connection with the matter of boundaries and in obedience to the provisions of the oyster law, the Commission has devised and adopted a set of rules for the purpose of settling boundary disputes between lessees of oyster bedding grounds in the State.

We cheerfully indorse the recommendation presented by Mr. John Dymond, Jr., which forms a part of this report. Any implement or labor-saving device should be permitted on a man's own oyster farm. In water too deep and too exposed to be fished by handtongs, other means should be permitted to make these oysters available to man. There need be no fear of the law being violated. This Commission will take care of and prevent that. That is its business.

It has been the common understanding of students of the oyster industry that in the deep and exposed waters of our

State there existed many undiscovered acres of natural oyster reefs, more particularly in the Gulf of Mexico. In some instances parties are known to have trailed a rope over the stern of their boats to which a piece of iron chain would be attached, and as the boat sailed along the chain would show that the boat was passing over oyster shells. It is known also, more especially on the east bank of the Mississippi River, when a crevasse occurs and the oysters are killed by an excess of fresh water, the shells of the dead oysters are soon covered by a new set of young oyster spat. So much is this the case that it is the common belief among the oyster fishermen that these young oysters are reproduced or brought into being by the fresh water, and they laugh at the idea that oysters lay eggs and are of different sexes, contending that the fresh water is a spontaneous agency of oyster life. As a matter of fact, the true explanation of this physiological phenomenon is found in the existence of oysters in the deep water where the excess of fresh water does not reach. The more favorable surroundings produced by the fresh water on these deep water oyster reefs stimulate the reproductive or genital organs of these oysters and the increased quantity of oyster spat thrown off settles on the shells of the dead oysters and the reefs are replenished and reestablished.

These oysters are in water too deep and exposed to be fished by the only means of fishing allowed under the present law, namely hand tongs. The Commission, however, was authorized by the oyster law to procure and experiment with the more modern and improved implements necessary for deep water fishing and purchased a scraper, or what is commonly, but erroneously, called a dredge. A picture of the implement will be found in Mr. Dymond's article, made part of this report. This scraper was placed aboard the Patrol Schooner Majestic, which was sent to the West Gulf Coast, off the parishes of Iberia and Vermilion, and a committee from the Commission, composed of Messrs. James M. Breaux, N. H. Nunez and the Chief Inspector, carried on the investigation during the month of April. These gentlemen report that new oyster reefs, never before known, were found to exist, that thousands of acres of natural reefs extend along the Coast and that these oysters are at present perfectly useless and doing no one any good, because under the present law they can not be fished with the only legal implement we have, viz., hand tongs. It is the opinion of the Commission that these oyster reefs should be opened to commerce, that it is a great

source of wealth for our people that at present lies idle and it recommends that the use of modern oyster scrapers should be permitted, so that these oysters in deep and exposed waters could be fished and made available, under proper control of the Commission.

Another of the illogical restrictions of our present oyster law is the limitation to twenty acres as being the maximum amount of barren water bottom that any one person, firm or corporation may lease for the purpose of cultivation. In any other locality, and in any other industry, the residents of the locality and the citizens of the State would hail with gratification and delight the develop'ment or bringing into cultivation a large tract of unreclaimed and barren lands.

We have more territory available for oyster production than is now used in the whole State in any one agricultural crop, either cotton, sugar cane or rice, and yet we have less than 6,000 acres, less than one-tenth of one per cent. of the total area, under lease. Twenty years of experience has proven conclusively that, on the basis of maximum units of three, ten or twenty acre oyster farms, no development will result, and it would appear to the Commission. from the studies it has made as to this limitation, that it has been repeated in the previous oyster laws for the purpose of preventing any oyster development, with the result that the State is deprived of her just revenues from her large holdings of barren oyster bottom. It is true that the excuse has been given that such legislation was enacted for the purpose of preventing the formation of an oyster trust. Experience shows that trusts never control the raw product, and consequently we have no Cotton Trust producing cotton. We have no Sugar Trust producing sugar. We have no Rice Trust producing rice. Where a trust is formed, when it is formed, it is for the purpose of handling the crop produced by some one else, and no restriction on acreage will have any effect upon the handling of the product, except as it may absolutely prevent the raw material from coming into existence and being.

The practical result of this, therefore, is that the fear of an oyster trust has heretofore paralyzed any possible development. of the oyster industry. The fear is unquestionably and absolutely unfounded. If we should judge by the experience of the other States, where no limitation is placed upon the acreage that may be leased, we find that in the State of Connecticut, for instance, the oyster farmer with three acres successfully does business along with the oyster farming company controlling over 10,000 acres,