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the reason for this is certainly to be sought for in the erroneous principles which 
formed the basis for the undertakings. As mentioned above, Eschricht advised 
the introduction of foreign oysters, but this was certainly never done by the 
State; on the other hand, I have been informed by a man by word of mouth that 
he much later placed some foreign oysters in the fjord, namely Arcachon oysters 
ca. 10,000, and even American »hlue-points«; but most of them died, he said. I 
believe that even if other European races had been introduced, they would all in 
the next or within a few generations be converted to Lim Fjord oysters; just a3 
the conditions now transform the oysters there. Further it was indeed foreign 
oysters which entered the Lim Fjord, either through the Thyborøn canal as spat 
from the North Sea or perhaps from the oysters planted out by Amtmand Faye. 
Eschricht who had been in France when Professor Coste began his experiments 
in laying out oyster beds, was obviously much influenced by the ideas of the 
latter. As is known Coste's experiments proved to be failures in several ways. 
But the idea of: forming new oyster hanks lived long in Denmark. It was the 
basis for the later much disputed transplantation of standard oysters in the Lim 
Fjord and for a »law on the oyster fishery and oyster culture« by which the Finance 
Minister was empowered to offer a »grant in aid of experiments with the oyster 
fishery, such as transplantation of oysters and laying down of artificial oyster banks 
and oyster parks at such places in Danish sea-territory, where the oyster fishery 
had not previously been carried on etc.«. Many fruitless experiments were then 
made right down to Lolland; some of the best known were those conducted by 
G. Winther in Aarhus Bay. All were absolute failures and Winther judged 
very rightly that the reason lay not in the bottom conditions but in the conditions 
as regards salt and temperature. This great belief in the possibility of being able 
to form new banks, not only in our county but also in Germany, was based on 
the fact that old oyster shells were found on most of our coasts and it was known 
that oysters had come into the Lim Fjord; it was naturally thought that the earlier 
banks had been destroyed by over-fishing and that they could now be easily renewed. 
How completely wrong this view was, was shown first by the author in 1888; I 
showed that the hydrographical conditions had changed in our waters within the 
Skaw since the »kitchen midden« period, so that not only the oyster but a series 
of other forms had died out there since the stone age, as they could no longer 
live under the changed conditions. The scattered occurrence of oysters in 
certain parts of the Kattegat may be considered as an oft repeated experiment on 
the part of nature to plant the spat coming from the North Sea in the Kattegat 
again; but it proves that banks can never "be formed uuder the present conditions. 
With this explanation of mine we enter upon a new and more correct way of 
thinking, namely, that nature itself does all that is possible to bring the oysters 
to new banks by the distribution of the spat, which is carried many miles by the 
currents, and therefore that the oyster is found everywhere whére it can 
live. If we would lay down oyster beds we have only to change the conditions 
and the oysters would come of themselves. In this way they came into the 
Lim Fjord when the conditions changed, and they have in spite of all 
statements to the contrary certainly spread themselves over the whole fjord very 
quickly; only it took some time to observe them, and it also took some time per- 
