4.2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



2,000,000 oysters. This, however, was the period of the Napoleonic 

 wars, and the fishery was much disturbed by the English cruisers. 

 During this time the beds became so thickly stocked that the oysters 

 were in some places a yard thick. After the close of the war the fish- 

 ery improved, and the oysters were removed in larger and increasing 

 numbers until 1843. 



From 1823 to 1848 it is supposed that the dredgers were living 

 upon the animals accumulated during the period of enforced rest, 

 from 1800 to 1816. In 1817 the number of oysters produced was 

 5,600,000, and until 1843 there was a constant increase, the number 

 taken in that year being 70,000,000. In 1848 it was 60,000,000, and 

 thenceforward there was a constant decrease. From 1850 to 1856 the 

 decrease was from 50,000,000 to 18,000,000, and was supposed to be 

 the effect of over-dredging. From 1859 to 1868 the decrease was 

 from 16,000,000 to 1,079,000, the oysters having almost entirely dis- 

 appeared from the beds, though on account of the suffering condition 

 of the inhabitants of the shores it was impossible to prevent it or 

 restrict the fishery. In 1870 there was a complete wreck of the bottom, 

 which could only be remedied by a total prohibition of the fisheries for 

 several years. 



From the beds of the districts of Rochefort, Marennes, and Isle 

 d'Oleron, on the west coast of France, there were taken, in 1853-'54, 

 10,000,000 oysters ; in 1854-'55, 15,000,000. On account of exhaust- 

 ive fishing, in 1863-'64 only 400,000 could be obtained. 



According to Mr. Webber, Mayor of Falmouth, England, about 

 seven hundred men, working three hundred boats, were employed in 

 a profitable oyster-fishery in the neighborhood of Falmouth until 

 1866, when the old laws enforcing a close-time were repealed, under 

 an impression that, owing to the great productive powers of the oyster, 

 it would be impossible to remove a sufficient number to prevent the 

 restocking of the beds. Since 1866 the beds have become so impov- 

 erished, from the excessive and continual fishery, that in 1876 only 

 forty men and less than forty boats could find employment, and, small 

 as that number is, they could not take more than sixty or one hundred 

 oysters a day, while formerly, in the same time, one boat could take 

 from ten to twelve thousand. 



According to the statement of Mr. Messum, an oyster-dealer and 

 secretary of an oyster company in Emsworth, England, there were in 

 the harbor of Emsworth, between the years 1840 and 1850, so many 

 oysters that one man in five hours could take from twenty-four to 

 thirty-two thousand. In conseqtience of over-fishery in 1858, scarcely 

 ten vessels could find loads, and in 1868 a dredger, in five -hours, could 

 not find more than twenty oysters! 



The oyster-fisheries of Jersey, in the English Channel, afforded 

 employment to four hundred vessels. In six or seven years the dredg- 

 ing became so extensive and the beds so exhausted that only three or 



