THE OYSTER. 9 1 



be collected in this manner without difficulty; but no 

 attempt to put the new method into practical use was 

 made until the subject was taken up by the well known 

 French fish-cultivator Coste, who, in a report to the 

 Minister of Agriculture and Commerce in 1855, giving 

 an account of his examination of the methods used at 

 Lake Fusaro, expresses his desire to try similar 

 methods in France. 



Two years later the Emperor supplied the means for 

 experiments on a large scale, and commissioned Coste 

 to conduct them. Three million oysters, purchased 

 for the purpose, were conveyed by two small steamers 

 and a flotilla of small boats, to a place which had been 

 selected, where oyster shells had previously been 

 spread to serve as collectors, and after the oysters 

 were planted, long rows of bundles of fagots were let 

 down and anchored about a foot above them, as shown 

 in Figure 2. 



At the close of the season the shells and branches, 

 one of which is shown in Figure 3, were found to be 

 covered with young oysters, and more than twenty 

 thousand oysters were counted on one bundle. 



Before he began his work, he stated in his report for 

 1858, that out of twenty-three natural beds which 

 formerly constituted a great source of wealth, eighteen 

 had been completely destroyed, while the remaining 

 beds had been so impoverished that they no longer 

 yielded enough oysters for planting. In another 

 locality, where thirteen valuable beds formerly fur- 

 nished employment for two hundred vessels and four- 

 teen hundred men for six months in each year, and 

 yielded an annual harvest valued at ;^6o,ooo to ;^8o,ooo, 



