636 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



We felt bound tc impart this conviction to the sena- 

 torial commission on the re-stocking of waters when we 

 made a report upon the mission with which it did us the 

 honour to entrust us in 1880. 



The programme of the present report being limited to 



* 



a single branch of the cultivation of waters, we shall leave 

 on one side what relates to maritime pisciculture and 

 mussel rearing, and occupy ourselves exclusively with 

 ostriculture. One asks why the magnificent movement 

 which, under the impulse of the maritime administration of 

 M. Coste, determined upon the creation on the coasts of 

 the ocean of an industry in oysters, did not extend itself to 

 the French coasts on the Mediterranean. 



Is it that the waters are unsuitable to the valuable 

 mollusc ; or is the soil unable to furnish it with nourish- 

 ment ? 



By no means. The oyster is not a stranger in our 

 southern sea. 



There used to be some oysters at Port-de-Bouc, Cette, 

 Rocher d'Agde, Narbonne, &c. Some very fine ones are 

 still to be found, speaking only of the French coasts, at 

 Toulon, and in some of the salt pits of Corsica. We have, 

 moreover, seen established in the roadstead of Toulon a 

 magnificent establishment perfectly arranged and organised 

 which has no need to envy the finest spots on the ocean. 



At Cette, in the canal which connects the pond of 

 Thau with the sea, promoters have established floating 

 pares of very limited dimensions (for the largest measures 

 only 40 superficial metres), in which more than a million 

 of oysters are annually fattened, and are piled one on the 

 top of the other. It is evident, therefore, that the waters 

 of the Mediterranean possess the properties which the 

 oyster requires for its growth and prosperity. 



