BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 335 



The principal reasons why the ostracultural industry has not yet es- 

 tablished itself on our southern coast are, in the first place, the ignor- 

 ance of the art of aquiculture, for want of an example to follow, on the 

 part of the maritime population of those districts; in the second, the 

 poor success of the attempts already made; and, finally, the greater suc- 

 cess of all those who devote themselves to the culture of the vine, the 

 silk-worm, and madder. Times are now changed; different scourges 

 have visited our southern provinces and ruined their secular industries. 

 A more marked exodus of the population has now manifested itself for 

 some years; the inhabitants with regret leave the land where they were 

 born — they no longer yield them what will suffice for the needs of ex- 

 istence. This emigration would be arrested the day that a new indus- 

 try came to furnish a field for their activities. Do we not know that 

 oyster culture alone on our ocean shores regularly gives the means of 

 existence to more than 200,000 persons? What immense resources 

 would they not yield if the shores of the south could be taken ap and 

 developed in proportion to the extent to which they are capable? 



But if it is necessary to cite the example of the western coasts, where 

 the cultivation of the oyster has always been practiced, in an imperfect 

 manner it is true ; if the citation of this example were necessary, we 

 repeat, to illustrate the splendid results which we would record, there 

 is all the more reason why the southern coasts should be cultivated, 

 where the people have always ignored the very first principles of oyster 

 culture. 



The examples of Toulon and Cette are too much isolated, and their 

 influence extends over too restricted an area to provoke extensive imi- 

 tation. It is asked if the success met with at those places could be as 

 readily achieved in the Gulf of Marseilles, in the lagoon of Berre, and 

 in those of Languedoc and Bousillon. Conscious of the utility of the 

 efforts which have been made on the Mediterranean coasts, we have 

 been authorized by the administration of the marine to make some ex- 

 periments in the lagoon of Thau, in some of the estuaries of Langue- 

 doc, in the Gulf of Fos, and the lagoon of Berre, which have related 

 especially to the artificial reproduction of the Portuguese oyster and its 

 culture. 



The work of artificial fertilization, using spawning adults which came 

 from the Gironde, has, after some uncertainty, been clearly success- 

 ful. M. Hardy, deputy of the administration of the marine at Cette, 

 whom we instructed in our methods, wrote us, three weeks after our ex- 

 periments were commenced, that the artificial fertilizations conducted 

 by him resulted in producing mobile embryos in sixty five cases out of a 

 hundred. This was nearly the. average attained at Verdon. All that 

 was needed was to disseminate these larvae in a favorable medium and 

 to place collectors in proximity. The rock of Rouqueyrol, situated in 

 the center of the lagoon of Thau, seemed to be favorable, and we had 



