iS 



brought together in multitudes for the purpose of spawn- 

 ing or to feed on some food matter accumulated perhaps 

 in some indentation of the coast under the action of a 

 current eddy, and here the yield per acre of surface may 

 be prodigious. Elsewhere and even in the same places 

 at another season fishes may be all but wholly absent. 

 Inshore waters generally do appear to furnish larger and 

 more valuable food returns to man than average quality 

 of agricultural land, and the absolute productivity of the 

 sea per acre is probably greater than that of the land. 

 This latter is however not the question before us, which 

 is the profit to be drawn by man from the cultivation of 

 selected areas of shallow water. 



To assess the value to a district of fish farming such 

 as is practised at Arcachon it is more just if we consider 

 what the same area would yield were it cultivated in any 

 other manner, rather than make a comparison with the 

 profit derivable from rich agricultural land. We must 

 also consider the relative amount of labour necessitated 

 in the cultivations compared. Considering the matter 

 from this standpoint we shall see this profit of £^ per 

 acre in a much more favourable light. The proprietor 

 of the farm we have mentioned was able to make a 

 profit of just ,£1,000 on the working of 243 acres of 

 what was originally a salt marsh and this with the aid 

 of a surprisingly small labour force — 4 men in all. What 

 form of land culture can show such a record for 4 men's 

 work ? Again, were this marsh land not utilised for fish 

 culture, its value for agricultural purposes would be 

 comparatively small for several years, because the land 

 being below the level of high tides and saturated with 

 salt, it would be a long time before it became sweet 

 enough to yield good crops. 



It must further be borne in mind that the culture 

 system pursued is of the simplest description, so much 

 so that in the preceding pages I have avoided the use of 

 this term wherever possible, preferring the more elastic 

 one ' farming '. True culture implies breeding and this 

 the Arcachonnais have never attempted ; neither do they 

 supplement the food supply of the ponds except by 

 turning into them such fry and small crustaceans as are 

 taken fortuitously when freshening the water. Up to the 

 present time the attention of the owners has been 



