COMPTROLLER OF THE TREASURY. XI

"Oyster Fund" will probably not much exceed the expenditures.
During the past fiscal year, as well as the fiscal year 1874, they
have in fact been much less than the expenditures, including the

cost of the six new sloops ordered for the service under the Act of
1874. I respectfully recommend that authority be given to the
Clerks of the Circuit Courts in the several counties, and to the
Clerks of the different Courts in Baltimore City, to administer the
oath to owners and masters of vessels requiring licenses to dredge
for oysters, and to certify the same to the Comptroller. In many
instances it occasions great inconvenience and expense to such

owners and masters to come to Annapolis for this purpose, and great
relief would be afforded them in such cases by legislation to that
effect.

THE STATE'S INVESTMENTS.

The various stocks in which the money of the State has been
from time to time invested, are given in detail in Statement ''I.''
The Baltimore and Ohio Hail Road Company has punctually paid
the dividends on the stock held by the State in the Washington
Branch, and also on the preferred stock. The Columbia and Port
Deposit Rail Road Company have punctually paid the interest on
the bonds held by the Slate, and the Northern Central Railway
Company, and Susquehanna and Tide Water Canal Companies have
paid the amount of interest due from them under the compromises
made with the State. The Bohemia Bridge Company has paid a
dividend during the fiscal year on the stock held by the State,
amounting to $1,184.50.

From those stocks denominated unproductive, no immediate returns
are to be expected, although the large proportion of them will proba-
bly yield something eventually. The immense amounts expended by
the State in aid of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Company, make
that work and its management, an objett of special solicitude on the
part of the people of the State.

By the Act of 1844, chapter 281, the State postponed her lien on
the Canal for the outlay made in its construction, for the benefit of
such persons as would advance the amount necessary to complete
the Canal to Cumberland. The large sums which had at that time
been devoted by the State towards this enterprise, would have
failed of their object without these advances, and the State Treasury
was not then in condition to enable the Legislature to give farther
aid to the work. For this reason that Act was passed to induce
capitalists to come forward and make the advances for its comple-