342 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



lessly were the beds dredged for the unfortunate bivalves 

 that the freight, which once reached ^"1000 per week in 

 the season, had fallen down to ^300 per annum. 



The French were the first to appreciate the full weight 

 of the suicidal policy pursued for the supply of oysters by 

 this overdredging of the natural deep sea breeding grounds. 

 MM. Coste and Kemmerer may be considered to have 

 been the pioneers of the new state of things on the French 

 coast, where the main supply of the future for the markets 

 is looked for from the breeding beds established at St. 

 Brieuc and other places. 



Referring to what the French have done in this respect, 

 Dr. Henry Lawson, the late editor of the Popular Science 

 Review, says "The most convincing evidence of all is 

 that afforded by the Isle of Re. Five years since the 

 shores of this island were barren and uncultivated ; now 

 they give employment to 3,000 men, and the crop of 

 oysters produced in 1861 was valued at ^320,000 sterling." 

 The oyster farms on the Isle of Re are, however, much 

 more valuable and productive now than at the time Dr. 

 Lawson wrote of them. 



The most successful instance of the rise of oyster spat 

 and its preservation up to this time on the English coast 

 for the present year has occurred on the same part of the 

 coast as it did the previous summer at Hayling Island, a 

 few miles east of the Isle of Wight, where an enclosed area 

 of water of eighteen acres, and of from five to six feet in 

 depth, may be almost said to be crowded with young 

 oysterlings. To show, however, clearly what has been 

 done and is now doing with oysters at Hayling, we must 

 leave the baby mollusks, and travel backwards for a short 

 time. We may refer to the Domesday Book, and find there 

 the Hayling and Emsworth oyster-beds referred to, and 



