In the Chesapeake Bay, watermen traditionally gathered oysters by tonging, scooping them from the bottom with long-handled tongs, and by dredging, dragging a large rake with an attached bag across the bottom; tonging began in the 18th century and dredging in the 19th century. West River watermen were largely tongers because Maryland restricted dredging on the open Bay to sail-powered boats after 1865, though some watermen also dove and harvested oysters by hand. Local families passed down tongmaking skills through generations, and Shady Side became known for tongs sought by buyers from the Eastern Shore and Delaware. Hand-tonging demanded great strength and skill as a waterman standing on the boat worked the tongs against the tides, lifted heavy catches aboard, and emptied them onto a culling board in a process called taking a lick, while patent tongs legalized locally in the 1960s used hydraulic power to ease the work. After harvesting, culling removed shells, debris, dead oysters, mussels, and oysters under three inches long, improving the catch's value to seafood buyers. Oyster beds lay on Bay bottoms of mud, clay, gravel, rock, sand, or shell, and after a 1906 to 1911 state survey mapped the natural oyster bars, bottom land without active bars could be leased to watermen and seafood companies as an underwater warehouse where oysters could be planted, stored, grown, and later sold when prices rose or demand increased.