770

LAWS OF MARYLAND.

CHAPTER 602.

AN ACT to repeal sections fourteen, twenty, twenty-one and

forty-one, of article seventy-two, of the Code of Public General

Laws, title "Oysters," and to re-enact the same with amend-

ments, and to add an additional section to said article to fol-

low section twenty to be known as "Section twenty A."

SECTION 1. Be it enacted ly the General Assembly of Maryland,

That sections fourteen, twenty, twenty-one and forty-one, of art-

Repealed

icle seventy-two, of the Code of Public General Laws, title

and re-en-
acted.

"Oysters," be and the same are hereby repealed and re-enacted

with amendments, and that an additional section to said article

is hereby added to come in after section twenty, to be known as

"Section (20) twenty A," so as to read as follows :

SEC. 14. Any resident of this State desiring to use any canoe

or other boat in catching or taking 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, a license therefor, and such license shall

have effect from the first day of September in the year in which

Obtain

it may have been obtained, to the twentieth day of April, inclu-

license

sive, next succeeding; provided, that such license shall not au-

thorize the use of said canoe or boat in taking or catching 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, and that the boundaries of the counties bordering 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 citizens of Queen

Anne's and Kent counties from using the waters of Chester river

in common, or the citizens of Dorchester and Wicomico counties

from using the waters of Nanticoke river in common, or the citi-

zens of Queen Anne's and Talbot counties from using the waters

of Wye river and the mouth thereof in common, or the citizens

of Dorchester and Talbot counties from using the waters of the

Not pre-
vent

Choptank river in common, but the provisions of this section so

far as it relates to a license taking effect on the first day of Sep-

tember, shall not apply to the Little Choptank river in Dorchester

county, in which river a license shall not take effect before the

fifteenth day of September, and the clerk of the circuit court for

Dorchester county shall so state on every license issued by him

to take oysters with rakes or tongs in Dorchester county.

SEC. 20. That all oysters taken from any of the waters of this

State, (either with scoops, dredges or any similar instrument, or

by tongs or rakes,) shall be culled upon their natural bed or bar