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under cultivation, and an industry established which sup- 
ports several prosperous villages. 
It seemed to me, moreover, that the fishing populations 
knew more about the products of their coasts and made 
more use of them, took a more lively interest in the welfare 
and habits of the animals—not only those which are the 
direct objects of the fisheries, but also others which have 
an indirect influence through being the natural food or 
enemies of the former—and devoted themselves with a 
more constant industry, and even a loving care, to the 
cultivation of their shores than is generally found to be the 
case amongst corresponding classes in this country. The 
neat little enclosures along the beach, carefully tended at 
low tides, remind one constantly of market gardening, 
and enforce the truth of the idea long familiar to the 
biologist and now beginning to be generally recognised 
that the fisherman should be the farmer not the mere 
hunter of his fish and that aqui-culture must be carried 
on as industriously and scientifically as agriculture. 
Another noteworthy point in regard to French fish- 
culture is the great extent to which the women seem to 
help and work along with the men. At Arcachon and 
several other places there seem to be as many women as 
men employed in the parcs, and they struck me as taking 
an intelligent interest and pride in their work. 
In addition to these personal qualities in the fisher folk 
the success of the shellfish industries in France 1s, I think, 
largely due to the encouragement and wise assistance of 
Government, especially in the regulation of general oyster 
dredging and the reservation of certain grounds for 
supplying seed. 
I do not see that the French shores are in any important 
respects better fitted for shellfish cultivation than ours are; 
the variety in geological formation is on the whole much 
