508 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



Paris, 29^ December, 1876. 



Monsieur le Ministre, 



You have done me the honour to entrust me with a 

 mission for the purpose of ascertaining the state of ostri- 

 culture upon our Channel and Atlantic coasts. 



I return from my mission with the strong conviction 

 that this new industry, so essentially French, has, after 

 some preliminary hesitation due to its very novelty, entered 

 definitely on such a stage of development and progress 

 that nothing it may be hoped can now cause it to decline. 



The ever-growing wants of the consumer, further 

 increased by facilities and readiness of transport, and the 

 diffusion of wealth, have attracted attention during the last 

 30 years and more. Agriculture was first obliged to meet 

 the greater part of these wants ; but the incessant require- 

 ments of the public food market have not allowed any 

 natural resource to be overlooked, and the rivers as well as 

 the sea have been taxed to supply their quota. 



In a few years our shores and watercourses were tho- 

 roughly exhausted, and the necessity for re-stocking the 

 waters, and bringing the domain of fishery under the regu- 

 lar conditions of production, then became an economical 

 question of the first order. Hence the origin and cause of 

 two industries created in our days, viz., pisciculture and 

 ostriculture. 



As early as 1872 and 1873, the Minister of Public 

 Instruction entrusted me with a double mission, to study 

 river pisciculture both in France and abroad. I am com- 

 pelled to admit, and do so with regret, that, while with 

 many of our neighbours the stocking of rivers and streams 

 with fish is carried on with marked success ; in France, 

 the birthplace of pisciculture, where it had its first scien- 



