OYSTERS. 903

	116. Leases; number of acres; dura- tion; non-payment of rent; ex- tension of lease; re-leasing. 129. Taking oysters during closed sea- son; proviso. 154A-154D. Certain of the oyster laws made applicable to Worcester County; leasing certain bottoms; fees, etc. Advisory Committee on Oysters. 155A. Appointment; duties.	Reserved Areas. 156. Power of conservation commis- sion; notices; reopening of area; penalty. 358. How, when and by whom oysters may be caught upon reserved areas; tax; certificate; inspec- tion and culling; when open to public; penalties. 161. Experimental area; penalty. 161A-161C. State experimental oyster farm.

Tonging.

An. Code, 1924, sec. 1. 1912, sec. 1. 1904, sec. 1. 1894, ch. 380, sec. 1. 1900, ch. 380.

1910, ch. 413, sec. 1 (p. 205). 1920, ch. 680. 1927, ch. 463, sec. 1.

1933, ch. 515.

1. Any resident of this State between the ages of fourteen and sixty-
five desiring to catch oysters with rakes or tongs for sale in any of the
waters of this State shall first obtain by application to the Clerk of the
Circuit Court for the county wherein he may reside or the Clerk of the
Court of Common Pleas of Baltimore City, a separate license for every
person to be employed on such boat, and such license shall have effect from
the first day of September, in the year which it may have been obtained,
to the fifteenth day of April, inclusive, next succeeding; provided that any
laws either local or public, now in effect or which may become in effect
curtailing the open season provided above, such local or public general laws
shall prevail, except in Talbot County and in the waters of the Choptank
River used in common by the residents of Talbot and Dorchester Counties
Such license shall not authorize the taking or catching of oysters in any
creek, cove, river, inlet, bay or sound within the limits of any county other
than that wherein the license shall have been granted, except that the resi-
dents of Baltimore City and other residents of the State duly licensed shall
be permitted to tong for oysters in the waters of Chesapeake Bay and
Potomac River on such bars which are not specifically reserved in this
Article for the exclusive use of any county; and that the boundaries of
the counties on navigable waters shall be strictly construed so as not to
permit the residents of either county to take or catch oysters beyond the
middle of the dividing channel; provided, that nothing in this section shall
be so construed as to prevent the citi/ens of Queen Anne's and Kent
Counties from using the waters of Chester Paver in common, or the citizens
of Dorchester and Wicomico Counties from using the waters of Nanticoke
River in common, or the citizens of Queen Anne's and Talbot Counties
from using the waters of the Wye River and the mouth thereof in common,
or the citizens of Dorchester and Talbot Counties and bona fide residents
of the Fourth Election District of Caroline County who shall have resided
in said district not less than one year next preceding from using the waters