ARTIFICIAL OYSTER CULTURE. 1103 



stable natives,' which I maintain these bays are able to 

 produce. 



"The practical question now is, can the state of things 

 existing forty years ago be here produced ? I emphatically 

 say the quality can, as I have produced, and am producing 

 them myself. The extraordinary thing is, how it is that 

 when such an article can be produced, demand has failed to 

 produce the supply. 



" In the first place, I think the general apathy may partly 

 account for it, as, for instance, the salmon fisheries have 

 not been handled by ourselves but by Scotchmen. Next, the 

 false ideas popular about oyster culture, as for instance that 

 the parent oyster laid something like a million of spat, so a 

 few would stock a bed, not knowing that fixing spat may 

 be compared to a man trying to catch birds by throwing 

 .his bat at a passing flock. Next, people starting in the 

 business with wrong ideas of 200 percent, per annum being 

 the ordinary profits to be made. And lastly, that any 

 stock would do, and that a good bed would make them good 

 oysters. 



" The problem I had to solve when I commenced their 

 culture in 1882 was to produce a small oyster attractive to 

 the English palate. I planted four different kinds experi- 

 mentally, two were a complete failure, one a partial suc- 

 cess, and one a complete success. Now had I confined 

 myself to the first three, and gone in for any of them on a 

 large scale, I might have blamed the business, and this has 

 been a very common occurrence. It has taken me eight 

 years to produce a perfect oyster, so far as the English 

 taste is concerned. Convinced that nature had provided 

 all the requisites on my Ballysodare beds, I persevered at 

 my own expense in overcoming all difficulties, but with the 

 ultimate hope of making Ireland attractive to English 



