OYSTER CULTURE IN ENGLAND. 465 



of births, and omitted to notice the deaths. I, therefore, 

 reject this estimate, and shall endeavour to deduce the 

 state of the stock beds from less direct but safer testimony. 



In making such a deduction, it is important to observe 

 that the sales to Mr. Gann in 1877 decreased as the season 

 advanced. In the four weeks of January the sale of oysters 

 exceeded 35,000 a week. In the five weeks ending the 

 2jrd of June, the sale of oysters (in the three weeks during 

 which sales took place) averaged only 5650 a week. A 

 similar decrease took place in the sales of brood, and this 

 diminution in the sales was certainly not due to any dimi- 

 nution in the machinery of capture. The Company had 

 only three boats employed in January : they had five at 

 work in June. It is true that the boats, according to Mr. 

 Lovely, were employed " catching for Mr. Gann and 

 dredging over the ground." But, as this description 

 applies to the whole six months, I think it a fair inference 

 that the stock on the stock beds was gradually reduced 

 throughout the first half of 1877. 



This conclusion is confirmed by the evidence of Mr. 

 Jeffries, the Company's foreman in 1877. He states dis- 

 tinctly that " after the last inquiry they caught up the 

 oysters on the stock beds, and sold them to Mr. Gann, 

 who came for them. Took up all the oysters they could 

 get." It is also indirectly confirmed by the evidence of 

 William Rose, who was working for the Company in 1878 

 and 1879. Rose declares that in those years the men were 

 allowed to go all over the ground, and were not even pro- 

 hibited from working on the stock beds. "All the oysters 

 on the stock beds were caught, and he could go any- 

 where." This concurrence of testimony seems to show 

 that the stock on the stock beds had been reduced to very 

 small proportions by June, 1877. But I do not think that 



