SUPPLEMENT. J 245 



close time, supplemented by the license duties on rods 

 and nets. You might protect the breeding grounds of 

 salmon as strictly as you pleased and as long as you pleased ; 

 but, if too many of the ascending fish were captured, the 

 stock would fall off, and if all were captured, it would 

 come to an end. 



If the protection afforded to an oyster bed is to be 

 made equivalent to that given to a salmon river, measures 

 must be taken by which the undue diminution of the stock 

 of oysters, at any time, may be prevented. The most 

 effectual way of doing this is to form an estimate of the 

 number of oysters on a bed before the commencement of 

 the open season ; and to permit the removal of only such 

 a percentage as will leave a sufficient stock. And regula- 

 tions of this nature have long been carried out in the 

 Schleswig oyster fisheries and in those of France. A 

 subsidiary regulation, tending towards the same end, is 

 that which enforces the throwing back into the sea of all 

 half-grown oysters. As oysters produce young before they 

 are half-grown, this procedure must contribute to the 

 breeding stock. 



When, nearly twenty years ago, my colleagues, Sir 

 James Caird, Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, and I, had to deal with 

 the oyster question, I am not aware that any of us doubted 

 the value of protection of public oyster beds in the open 

 sea, if it could only be made efficient, 



j 



What we were quite clear about, however, was : 



(1) That the close time regulation which then existed 

 was always useless, and sometimes mischievous. 



(2) That the regulation prohibiting the taking of half- 

 grown oysters interfered with the transfer of oysters from 

 the public beds, where they were exposed to all sorts of 

 dangers, to the private grounds where they were protected. 



