OYSTER CULTURE IN FRANCE. 501 



By a decree of the President, recently promulgated, 

 the annual close time for oyster fishing is entirely abolished, 

 and henceforth oysters measuring more than five centi- 

 metres across may be taken, bought, and sold in the open 

 markets, at all times and seasons of the year. Those of a 

 lesser size may only be taken for the purposes of cultiva- 

 tion, or for laying down in new beds. The wisdom of the 

 measure will, no doubt, be widely questioned here, for 

 most Englishmen believe in a close time, under the im- 

 pression that it tends to protect the beds from undue 

 depletion, and thus helps to make the oyster more plenti- 

 ful. It must not, however, be forgotten that there is at 

 least something to be said on the other side of the ques- 

 tion, and more than one expert could point to facts in this 

 country which go far to prove that over-protection, in the 

 shape of close time, is not always the good thing many 

 imagine. Oyster plantations are necessarily situated in 

 shallow sandy stretches of the seashore, where the rise and 

 fall of the tide helps to keep the water clean and fresh, and 

 where the ebb and flow of the water brings within reach of 

 the growing spat an ample supply of the tiny animalculae 

 on which the oyster feeds and develops. Such shallow 

 stretches of inshore water are, however, particularly liable 

 to be choked up by the sand washed in with the tide, in 

 which case the young oysters are really suffocated, and the 

 bed is practically destroyed. Regular dredging keeps the 

 ground open, and prevents the accumulation of sand-drift. 

 A close time, especially if at all prolonged, has, of course, 

 the reverse effect. And it is to the operation of the law 

 enforced in this country, which prohibits the taking of 

 oysters at certain periods of the year, that we owe the 

 "silting up," as it is termed, of some of the finest oyster 

 grounds on the east coast of England that of the estuary 



