STATISTICAL AND OTHER INFORMATION. 88 1 



comparative rest at the time of the Napoleonic wars, would 

 have been lying upon the banks as late as about 1830. 

 From this time on, for nearly a score of years, it is pro- 

 bable that the ever-increasing yield was the produce of 

 only those oysters existing upon the beds from 1820 to 

 1830. From 1840 to 1847 the number of oysters taken 

 was extraordinarily great evidently too great for the pro- 

 ductiveness of the beds, since from this time they produced 

 fewer oysters each year. 



The total number of oysters taken between the years 

 1840 and 1847 was about 512,000,000, being on an average 

 about 64,000,000 per year. If this average represents the 

 natural stock of marketable, full-grown oysters upon the 

 beds of Cancale, then the number taken yearly should not 

 have been over twenty-six to twenty-seven millions, if it 

 was desired that this degree of productiveness should be 

 maintained. This I assert upon the supposition that the 

 productiveness of the oysters in the Bay of Cancale is no 

 greater than upon the Schleswig-Holstein banks. If this 

 productiveness was higher than upon our sea-flats, then 

 we ought to have at Cancale, not 421 half-grown oysters 

 for every 1000 full-grown ones, but, for example, 500. 

 Under these circumstances, the presence of 64,000,000 

 matured oysters would permit the fishing of 32,000,000 

 yearly, but no more if the fruitfulness of the beds would 

 be kept at that number, since such a stock would be abso- 

 lutely necessary, in order that a sufficient number of young 

 should be produced to secure the maturing of 32,000,000 

 yearly. 



After the impoverishment of the beds of Cancale, the 

 inspection officers enforced once more the laws protecting 

 the oyster, since they did not believe that all the mature 

 breeding oysters had been taken off the beds. Upon some 



