332 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



sexual species of oysters, like those of Dakar, America, etc. ; secondly,, 

 the establishment of beds at different places known to be favorable 

 along - our coast. 



This work of colonization would present no very great difficulties, cor 

 would it entail a very heavy expense. This might be carried out at the 

 mouth of one of our rivers — the Charente or Adour, for example, the 

 mouths of which are known to be well adapted as breeding and hatching 

 basins. In these reservoirs during three months we would pour the ferti- 

 lized products of thousands of oysters, and allow the resulting embryos 

 to disperse themselves freely in the river. If the collectors, tiles, stones, 

 or shells were then spread on the bed of the river, a. bank would soou 

 be formed ; and if they repeat this operation for two or three years,, 

 this bank will be sufficiently important to become an object of regular 

 and productive improvement. 



CULTURE. 



Our experiments in propagation have for their necessary complement 

 the study of the question of. culture. We are now assured of no lack 

 of the spat of the Portuguese oyster. The culturists of Verdon who 

 furnish it need have no anxietv about finding sale for what is collected 

 during the spawning season. Arcachon'will take a large quantity, and 

 we need scarcely observe that its employment will render it possible to 

 utilize lands supposed to be unproductive, and also abandoned parks 

 which have been found not adapted to the culture of the common oys- 

 ter. Their cultivation is still practiced in some places on the island of 

 Oleron, and in some of the claires of the Seudre and of La Rochelle. 

 But the area devoted to this special industry is necessarily very limited, 

 because, in spite of the favorable reports on the culture [education] of 

 the oyster of the Tagns, the culturists do not appear disposed, at pres- 

 ent at least, to abandon, in preference to the latter, the culture of the 

 French oyster. 



It is now important to find suitable fields for the exercise of the en- 

 ergies of the maritime population ; to find sites suitable for the establish- 

 ments of which we are in need. 



We have extended our survey in part over our sea-coast, where por- 

 tions of the beach still remain unused, and in part along the shores of 

 the Mediterranean, where we encounter a vast chaplet of lagoons, 

 which are separated from the lake of Berre, where they do not termi- 

 nate, however, and after a short interruption of continuity end at the 

 lake of Le Canet. 



At the sea-shore we would designate some places along the Charente 

 and Adour, and particularly certain plains in the valley of the Gironde, 

 where, as at Verdon, the industry is almost entirely neglected. The 

 opinion of the inhabitants of this coast is, that the culture of the oyster 

 is there neither possible nor advantageous. This opinion has no fouu- 



