The 20th century's noble experiment in agricultural production has been the collective farm as developed and practiced in the Peoples' Republic of China and the former Soviet Union. It didn't work.
At the same time, we in Maryland have operated one agricultural industry, oyster production, primarily as a large collective farm. It hasn't worked here either. At least in China, Russia and Ukraine, unlike Maryland, government policy has recognized the failure and encouraged private ownership and operation of farms.
For about the last 65 years Maryland has relied on a state-run oyster farming operation. The state, at its expense, deposits oyster shells to catch young free-swimming oysters, about two weeks old, when they drop to the bottom and need a hard clean surface (old oyster shells are ideal) to which to attach.
In certain areas, such as the St. Mary's River, the oyster ''set'' is generally quite favorable. Often the concentration is so high that the oysters would be too crowded to survive effectively. So, when they are about a year old the state takes them up and broadcasts them in growing areas in the bay or tributaries.
After a growing period of about two more years, during which they are off-limits, these growing bars are opened to oystering by licensed watermen (the collective farmers) who harvest them for the market. They pay a per-bushel tax to the state to cover part of the cost of the operation. The balance is subsidized from general state revenues.
Public involvement in oystering began in 1882, when the governor and legislature appointed a commission to study the industry and recommend policy. The harvesting of oysters in public waters was then totally unregulated. The commission was headed by Dr. William K. Brooks, a distinguished zoologist of Johns Hopkins University.
In its 1884 report, the commission recommended private cultivation of oysters on tidewater bottoms in the manner of land-based agricultural crops. ''As the oyster stays where it is put, there is no difficulty in securing to private cultivators the fruits of their own industry.''
As an interim measure, the commission recommended that the state commence a demonstration project in oyster farming. Shells (''clutch'') would be planted in known high-production ''seed'' areas. The year-old young oysters would be transplanted to growing bars, just as tobacco farmers plant high concentrations of seed in seed beds and then transplant the young plants to growing fields. The demonstration project would serve as a model for private oyster farmers who would then acquire rights to tidewater bottom for individual farming operations.
