882 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



In 1870 a small ojster-bed was discovered iu the mouth of the Thames, 

 northeast of Whitstable, measuring GO feet in length and 20 feet in 

 breadth. Forty-eight hours after it had been discovered 75 vessels were 

 on* the spot fishing oysters. Most of those which they caught were not 

 fully grown, but there were not more than 9 to 10 young oysters of dif- 

 ferent ages to every full-grown oyster. This fact goes to show that I 

 was correct iu proving that, compared with the immeuse number of 

 young oysters produced, but few reach maturity. 



To 1,000 human beings we count G.26 births, and of 1,000 human 

 beings born 554 reach the age of twenty or more years. The produc- 

 tiveness of the oyster is, therefore, 7,000,000 times larger than that of 

 man, but the capacity to mature is 579,000 times greater ii^mau than 

 in the oyster. 



From the steady proportion between the full grown and half-grown 

 oyster of one bed, we find that a certain space requires two to three 

 years to replace 1,000 oysters that have been caught. It follows from 

 this that even the most productive beds, if fished every year, must 

 gradually grow less productive and finally be totally exhausted. Un- 

 mistakable proofs of this fact are found in the official reports on the oys- 

 ter fisheries of France and England. Near Falmouth 700 men, with 300 

 boats, used to carry on very jjrofitable oyster fisheries, as long as the old 

 prohibition laws were in force. Since 18GG, when these laws became a 

 dead letter, the beds have decreased in productiveness, so that at pres- 

 ent only 40 men, with less than 40 boats, are engaged in the oyster fish- 

 ery, each boat catching, on an average, no more than CO to 100 oysters 

 l)er day. 



On the rich oyster-beds of Cancale, on the coast of Normandy, 

 02,000,000 oysters were, on an average, caught every year from 1842 

 to 1849. After the year 1849 the number decreased from year to year. 

 In 1859 it was 10,000,000 ; in 18G1, 9,000,000 ; iu 18G3, 2,090,000, and 

 in 1865, only 1,100,000. 



The official reports on the inspection of our oyster-beds have furnished 

 the key for the solution of this problem. 



If the oysters on the coast of Normandy have the same capacity to 

 mature as the Schleswig-Holstein oysters, from 1841 only 40 per cent, of 

 the 02,000,000 full grown oysters near Cancale ought to have been an- 

 nually taken away in order to preserve for the beds the capacity to ma- 

 ture which was necessary to secure maturity to 24,000,000 to 25,000,000 

 young oysters. This excessive oyster-fishing iu France and England is 

 contemporaneous with the age of railroads, and grows almost in the 

 same proportion as the railroads extend. 



Before the age of railroads the inhabitants of the sea-coast were the 

 principal oyster eaters. September 21, 1740, the first 100 fresh oysters 

 were in Hamburg sold for 1.42 marks (present German money) apiece 

 (about 37 cents); on the same day 900 were sold for 1.20 marks the hun- 

 dred ; then 3,400 for 60 pfennige a hundred, and finally 10,800 for 30 

 pfennige a hundred. 



