OYSTER CULTURE IN AMERICA. 767 



and it should of course be made to pay back into the State 

 Treasury the money expended in cultivating it. The best 

 method of doing this is to collect a tax (say five cents a 

 bushel) upon all oysters taken from it, and the method of 

 collecting this tax should be determined by law before the 

 farm is opened to the public. 



The revenue from this source would show whether it 

 is expedient for the State to continue the business on a 

 larger scale ; but your Commissioners believe that the true 

 policy is for the State to do only enough in this direction 

 to instruct our people in the methods to be employed, and 

 that the whole matter should then be left to private enter- 

 prise. 



The history of French oyster culture is of very great 

 interest in this connection. Nearly twenty-five years ago 

 the French government undertook the cultivation of oysters, 

 in order to restock the exhausted beds. The government 

 farms were at first very successful, and they not only proved 

 that oyster farming is very profitable, but they also served 

 as a school for the instruction of the public in the methods 

 of oyster culture. This example was followed by private 

 cultivators, and the private industry upon the French coast 

 is now in a very prosperous condition ; but a government 

 report (Oyster Culture in Morbihan) upon the subject, in 

 1875, contains the statement that " the worst merchant in 

 France is the State." 



This report shows so clearly the great superiority in 

 every respect of private enterprise over government manage- 

 ment, that we beg leave to call attention to the following 

 extract : 



" Coste did not doubt the result ; failure seemed to him 

 almost impossible ; he foresaw the complete transforma- 

 tion of the sea coast, and exclaimed, in his letter of March 



