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rich were selling off their imported stock more rapidly 

 than could be made good by the growth of the brood 

 obtained by the yet imperfect form of collector employed. 

 Several poor spatting- seasons supervened, the parks 

 became denuded by the reckless sale of breeding stock, 

 there being an insufficiency of bred oysters to replace 

 them ; depression and panic seized the smaller capitalists 

 and concessions were thrown up wholesale. Be it noted 

 particularly that the chief causes of this reverse were 

 lack of foresight and the imperfect and expensive form of 

 collector chiefly in use — the plank collector coated with 

 a form of pitch or resin which, when separated from the 

 planks, brought away the young oysters with it. 



This disaster was a terrible set back to the young 

 industry and no further progress was made till an 

 unnamed seaman working on an oyster park near 

 Granville suggested to his employer the advantage 

 of utilizing half-round roofing tiles for the collection 

 of spat. Coste heard of this, recognized its great 

 possibilities and introduced the new method on an 

 extensive scale at Arcachon. It answered admirably 

 and proved far superior to the plank collector previously 

 in use there ; immense quantities of spat adhered to 

 the tiles laid out, but when they came to be detached 

 it was found impossible to separate them without whole- 

 sale destruction. Even to break up the tiles and leave 

 the young attached to fragments entailed great loss 

 partly however compensated by the high price obtainable 

 then for oysters ; a pause in development ensued till 

 Dr. Kemmerer of the He de Re overcame this difficulty 

 by partly coating the tiles, before placing them in 

 position, with a mixture of quicklime, sand and defi- 

 brinated blood to which he added broken shells and 

 fragments of wood in order to increase the surface area. 

 A little later he modified this procedure by interposing a 

 sheet of paper between the tile and the layer of mortar. 

 Then when the spat had attached, the whole covering of 

 the tile, paper, mortar and spat, was detached with the 

 greatest ease and sub-divided as required. 



