Peninsula Enterprise, February 21, 1891
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Transportation -- Railroad - Corporate
The annual meeting of the stockholders of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk railroad will be held in Cape Charles [City] on the 17th of March.
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Farmers -- Farmers' organizations
At the Farmer's Institute held in Charlottesville, last Tuesday and Wednesday, Capt. O.A. Browne was booked to participate in the discussion on following subjects: Road making and Horse-breeding.
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Moral -- Other violent crime
Ned Watson, colored, brother of Henry Watson, who was sent to the penitentiary from this county, last week, stabbed another negro, Wednesday, near Onancock, inflicting serious wounds. He fled immediately upon committing the crime and it is thought has left the county.
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Infrastructure -- Commercial - Real estateForests -- SawmillsFields -- Crops - Other fruitSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : LegislationWatermen -- Watermen's organizations
Mappsville.
John P. Stevenson has sold his Bowles farm near Oak Hall, to Sam'l W. Matthews for $2,000. It is said that Mr. Matthews proposes to move his saw mill to that place soon.
Wm. F. Gillespie has accepted the positin of private sevretary to Capt. O. A. Browne, superintendent of Hollywood Farm, near Cape Charles [City].
George T. Gillespie, Esq., is at present supplying our market with green apples, the produce of his own orchards. This fact goes to prove what could be done in fruit raising here, if proper selections of varieties are made, and good judgement and energy be applied in their cultivation. We have a fine fruit country, but only a few of us seem to realized it.
In regard to the irrepressible oyster question, our people think, the course outlined by Mr. Grant in your last issue, the right and proper one for those most interested to pursue. Let the practical oystermen of the State meet in convention, it is probable they know what laws would be best for them, so let them have the convention and run it, and let no amateur oystermen and theorists get their fine work in somewhere else, viz: the newspaper. There they will afford us amusement if nothing else. So let them go ahead Mr. Editor, and make the barnacles fly.
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Sea -- Shellfish - Oystering : LegislationSea -- Shellfish - Oystering : Planting
MR. EDITOR:
The letter in your last issue signed United Oystermen, I have read with care. I find he is in direct opposition to me, so he says, and to give strength to his antagonism he assumes positions for me; but keeps clear of what I really said. I will give him another chance to understand me. I am for:
First. Oyster culture.
Second. The reservation of the natural oyster beds for the common use of the citizens of the State.
Third. For a separation of the two branches of industry, so that one shall not encroach on the other.
The first proposition I advocated twenty years ago in the columns of the Norfolk Virginian. I believed in it then, and experience has taught me that I was and am right, and the necessity for it is being recognized on every hand. There are legal impediments to this work; I want to see them swept away -- the work is hazardous and expensive and it should have every protection that the law can afford, and all the encouragement that the State can give. The work is divided into two branches -- 1st, planting and growing oysters for seed; and 2nd, the making of new oyster beds by placing on bare and waste grounds under salt water, oyster shells or any other clean hard substance for the young oysters to adhere to as soon as formed in the water. The difficulties and expenses of this business I need not detail here, but, if it is successful the results are wonderfully great and profitable.
On the second proposition, I am willing for the State and the oyster people, that use them, to say how they should be managed.
The third proposition is absolutely necessary for the success and maintenance of the first and second propositions.
United Oystermen is enjoying the natural beds and he and his followers are getting rich -- that is their statement -- I am glad to hear it -- it adds wealth to the State and her citizens. But why should united oystermen and his followers object to oyster culture or the means necessary to its success. If United Oystermen has a monopoly of the natural beds, and no one asks to deprive him of it, can he not be satisfied? Is it necessary that he should stop oyster culture? Not at all -- the two branches of this industry can go on, hand in hand -- for the benefit of the people and the State, and there is no reason for envy or jealousy on the part of either.
I wish to correct a few statements in United Oystermen's letter. The Oyster Navy was established in 1868 and not in 1874 -- the reasoning which followed based on this mistake in dates -- has no foundation in fact.
Again United Oystermen says that each laborer who worked on the Connecticut oyster fields, received $2.57, as his share of the income; according to his own figures -- it is $252.50 to each person; quite a difference.
United Oystermen says the income last year, from the Connecticut oyster interest was $1,232,243.
That is what oyster culture did for Connecticut; her once barren oyster grounds that had to buy seed from Virginia to plant, are now yielding an annual income to that State, equal to, one-fifth of the assessed value on all the real and personal property of the county of Accomac. No better proof is needed, of the value of oyster culture -- and these are the figures, vouched for, by United Oystermen.
I hope writers on the oyster question will stick to the subject, and not drift off, on points not in question. If my views are wrong, I want to see them destroyed and swept away by facts and reason: but I know, they can stand, any and all attacks, because they are right, for the best interest of the State and people.
Respectfully, ORRIS A. BROWNE.