_Success of this System._--The system of private control by leased grants is by no means a new and untried theory. In actual operation for many years in this and other States, in spite of lack of protection and other drawbacks which would be eliminated from a perfected system, it has proved an unqualified success. The rapid depletion and even extermination of the native oyster beds necessitated legislative consideration, and for years the oyster industry above and below low-water mark in this and other States has been dealt with by a similar system. The plan here suggested would be but a direct extension of a well-tested principle towards the cultivation of other species of mollusks. The financial value to the fishermen of such a step has been proved beyond all question in this State during the past three years by the demonstrations of the Massachusetts department of fisheries and game. These experiments have proved that tidal flats, with small outlay of capital and labor, will yield, acre for acre, a far more valuable harvest than any upland garden. This system has the further element of success by being based on individual effort, in contrast to the present communal regulation of shellfisheries. In all business individual initiative and effort furnish the keynote of success, and the future wellfare of the shellfisheries depends upon the application of this principle. Nature cannot without the aid and co-operation of man repair the ill-advised, untimely and exhaustive inroads made in her resources. This is shown in the thousands of acres of good farm lands made unproductive by unwise treatment, and by the wasteful destruction of our forests. It is as strikingly shown in the decline of our shellfisheries. The fisherman exhausts the wealth of the flats by destroying both young and adults, and returns nothing. The result is decrease and ultimate extermination. The farmer prepares his land carefully and intelligently, plants his seed and in due time reaps a harvest. If the fisherman could have similar rights over the tidal areas, he could with far less labor and capital and with far greater certainty year by year reap a continuous harvest at all seasons. The success of the leasing system in other States, notably Louisiana, Rhode Island and others, is definite and conspicuous.