OYSTER CULTURE IN ITALY. 685 



The experiments are still in their infancy, but they promise 

 a successful issue. The oysters that have been used were 

 taken in the vicinity of Port-de-Bouc. They were first 

 placed in baskets submerged at a suitable depth, quickly 

 attained great vigour, and soon lost the salty and somewhat 

 muddy taste which they had on leaving the se-a ; but still 

 more important, not a single loss occurred. The experi- 

 ment was made only with reference to the oyster, but an 

 incident occurred which leaves no doubt as to the possibility 

 of artificially cultivating the mussel in the lake of Berre. 

 The baskets in which the oysters had been imprisoned, 

 when placed in the water, at spawning time were covered 

 in a few days with small mussels. 



Let us seek to discover then (for it cannot require a 

 great deal of time or money), the apparatus to be used in 

 Lake Berre, in order to collect and preserve the spat of this 

 mollusc : let the system of ropes which is used at Tarente 

 and Fusaro with so much success again be tried, if, in this 

 case, the crawls and the rafts do not succeed, and when the 

 proper apparatus shall have been found there is a strong 

 probability, not to say certainty (as is proved by what I have 

 said above, especially if the rational rules which have been 

 pointed out by science and practice be observed, and if 

 suitable localities be chosen), that mussel culture will be 

 established there, and attain all the prosperity which has 

 been attained by the sister industry, oyster-culture, at 

 Arcachon and in the sea of Morbihan. 



Below Lake Berre is Lake Caronte, as rich in shell-fish 

 and other fish as the first named, and finally Port-de-Bouc, 

 where oyster-cultural experiments were made by M. Viand; 

 but a dry summer coming, the oysters all perished. Since 

 Caronte and Port-de-Bouc were placed in more perfect 

 communication with Lake Berre, however, the fishermen 



