OYSTER CULTURE IN FRANCE. 577 



number is increased to 80 or 90. Experiments have been 

 made by M. Venot on the American oysters. Of four 

 barrels of spat sent from America, two arrived in good 

 condition, and the surviving specimens quickly recovered 

 the fatigue of their long voyage in the pares of Crastorbe. 

 Their development was rapid, and one cannot do better 

 than compare them with the Portugal oyster, which they 

 resemble in many respects. The American oyster has been 

 little approved of in this country, and its rearing has been 

 abandoned. 



As is the case with nearly all the principal oyster 

 cultivators, and especially with M. de Montauge, whose 

 works are truly magnificent, the oysters which come from 

 the pares of Venot & Co. are not immediately sent away. 

 They are transported first to the basins annexed to the 

 dispatching department, where they are allowed to cleanse ; 

 they are then washed and classified anew. The sorting is 

 done by machines, which render this work easy ; a single 

 woman can sort from 20,000 to 30,000 in one day. 



Among the principal pare owners of La Gironde, who, 

 side by side with their purely commercial industry, make 

 experiments with the view of perfecting the methods of 

 oyster- culture, I shall cite MM. de Montauge Freres, who 

 have organised, on the road to La Teste, an experimental 

 laboratory in their large establishment at Saint Joseph. 



This laboratory, to which will be very shortly annexed 

 a studio for research and observation, which will be provided 

 with microscopes, consists of a basin of an area of 1500 

 metres square and i metre deep, divided into two compart- 

 ments, one of which is devoted to the preparation of oysters 

 to be sent away, the other to experiments. The first 



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