334 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



lightened attention of the minister of marine, that the work of deepen- 

 ing and eleaning the canals of Bainbaud and Le Conseiller be under- 

 taken. The realization of this idea, giving to the honest and interest- 

 ing population along the Gironde an opportunity for which they have 

 long waited, would permit them to practice oyster-culture on the spot 

 at Verdon, and would have the effect of yielding up hundreds of hec- 

 tares to industrial enterprise. 



We will turn our attention to the Atlantic coasts and the shores of 

 the Mediterranean. We are here brought into the presence of immense 

 beaches and lagoons which no one has ever attempted to reclaim. 

 Would it not, therefore, be found that the ponds of Berre, Caronte, 

 Le Gloria, Mauguio, Palavas, Frontignau, Thau, Sigean, and Leueate 

 are suitable for an enterprise of this kind? Does it not seem as if 

 human industry might put an eud to their sterility? The aquicultural 

 industry, for example, for which they seem to have been designed, would 

 it not be able to there establish and develop itself? We have studied 

 the southern coast in detail, the aridity of which presents an afflicting 

 spectacle, and in passing from one to another of the stations along these 

 shores we have been convinced that they might become a field for active, 

 industry and a source of national prosperity. 



This conviction I have endeavored to^cause the members of the sen- 

 atorial commission, in charge of the restocking of our waters, to share 

 with me, in making the report to them of the investigation with which 

 they had the honor to charge me in 1880." 



The plan of the present report was limited exclusively to a single 

 branch of aquiculture, having put aside everything which relates to 

 marine pisciculture and myticulture [culture of mussels] in order to 

 devote ourselves exclusively to the subject of the culture of the oyster. 

 We may ask why the grand movement under the direction of the mar- 

 itime administration and M. Coste, which determined the inauguration 

 of the oyster industry on the shores of the ocean, did not extend to the 

 French coasts of the Mediterranean. Are the waters not adapted to 

 the precious mollusk ; would they not be able" to nourish it '. Yes, most 

 assuredly. The oyster is no stranger to our southern ocean. They 

 were formerly to be had at Port de Bone, at Cette, on the Bocher-d'Agde, 

 at Narbonne, &c. We still find fine ones, not to speak of the French 

 coast, at Toulon and in salt-water ponds in Corsica. Furthermore, we 

 have seen magnificent beds established in the roads [bay] of Toulon, 

 well ordered and managed, and which have nothing to envy in the 

 splendid cultivations established on the shores of the ocean. 



At Cette, in the canal connecting the lagoon of Thau with the sea, 

 the cultivators have established floating parks of small dimensions, for 

 the largest will not exceed forty square meters in area, on which they 

 pile up and fatten more than a million oysters annually. We find, there- 

 fore, that the waters of the Mediterranean possess the qualities neces- 

 sary to the growth and prosperity of the oyster. 



