352 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



average on the capital employed, especially as there is no 

 material reduction in the price .... Natural oysters in 

 Europe are not to be found in many places or in con- 

 siderable quantities. The crop of oysters is as much a 

 question of cultivation as a crop of cereals, and as there 

 are many spots suitable for cultivation, in addition to those 

 already employed for that purpose, we can only hope that 

 the number of them made practically available will increase 

 from year to year. 



" We believe in ' Natives,' and if it is too much to 

 ask that they shall be born here, let us at least have them 

 naturalized in our beds at a very early period of their 

 history, and fattened to the taste which has so long been 

 cultivated amongst us. It is not merely a question of food, 

 but the industry gives employment to a large number of 

 people, (a) and, in Whitstable alone, the capital employed 

 is considerably over half-a-million sterling and increasing 

 yearly. We ought to grow our own supply, and it is not plea- 

 sant to reflect that we import 100,000 barrels from America. 

 It is uncomfortable to think that a quarter of a century 

 would barely suffice to restore European beds to their full 

 powers of production, but it is clear, with an ever growing 

 demand, prompt, large, and vigorous measures should be 

 taken to produce an adequate and permanent supply. If 

 oyster cultivators will ' eat their corn in the grass,' by exhaus- 

 ting their beds, they deserve to suffer the consequences of 

 greed. What we do not like in the affair is that the 

 oyster farmers cannot be punished for their own covetous- 

 ness and imprudence, without punishing the consumer 



(a) How many, I have no means of learning at this moment, but it 

 may prove of interest to the reader to know that " 120,000 fishermen 

 are always afloat round our coasts gathering in the Harvest of the 

 Sea." 



