ARTIFICIAL OYSTER CULTURE. 1097 



number of breeding oysters which it is absolutely necessary 

 to retain upon the banks, in order to maintain them at that 

 stage of fruitfulness necessary for a permanent and profit- 

 able oyster-culture. 



j 



The report of January, 1877, upon oyster-culture in 

 France, says: "Although the natural oyster-beds in the 

 Bay of Arcachon are regarded as breeding-beds, yet, never- 

 theless, the government allows them to be fished for some 

 hours every year, in order to remove the surplus of 

 oysters." This is a fundamental proposition which a 

 judicious oyster-breeder must carefully consider if the 

 greatest amount of profit would be. gained. In accordance 

 with this proposition, oysters should never be allowed to 

 remain upon a bank after they have passed the period of 

 their greatest growth and fecundity, or until they die of 

 aid age ; but we should anticipate nature, which demands 

 the death of the old and weak as an indispensable con- 

 dition for the production and bringing to maturity of the 

 greatest number of young upon any bed. (q) 



And now, having so far, both by previous and present 

 citations, endeavoured to gain the reader's respect for, if 

 not belief in Mobius as an irrefutable authority ; having 

 even, in his description of the attempts to introduce the 

 French system of artificial oyster-breeding into Great 

 Britain, quoted him, as it would seem, point blank against 

 my very argument, I will briefly sum up the evidence pro 

 et con. 



Mobius tells us that . . . "The old English 

 method of oyster culture was much simpler than the new 

 French method." 



Frank Buckland assures us ..." that the French 

 system, though so much lauded, is in reality no better than 

 (q) " The Oyster and Oyster Culture," pp. 49, 63, 64. 



