686 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [14] 



imminent elements of destruction, against which the cultivators must 

 continually struggle: the winds and the mud. 



The winds from the ocean — the violence of which is such that often 

 the oysters are shifted from one pare to another or scattered in the 

 tide- ways — blow usually during the winter, and necessitate the exer- 

 cise of incessant daily care to maintain the planting grounds in good 

 condition, the incursions of mud and sand being increased by the 

 roughness of the sea. At each tide, when possible, the cultivators must 

 visit their pare and proceed to the cleaning, the necessity for which is 

 constantly renewed. 



Four thousand persons are employed each day at this work. The 

 oysters never remain more than two or three years at Cancale. This 

 period of time is sufficient to give them the development necessary be- 

 fore sending them to market. 



Moreover, it is not to the interest of the cultivators to keep them for 

 a longer time. 



Besides the oyster merchants, properly so called, who profit by the 

 provisions of article 338 of the decree of July 4, 1853, in order to obtain 

 grants, many of the enrolled maritimes, in consideration of the abate- 

 ment of rent by the provincial administration, pursue the oyster industry 

 upon their own account. The poorest content themselves with keeping 

 for one season the oysters they have gathered from the beds, or which 

 their families have collected along the shore. Before the administration 

 of the marine had put in force those iirotective measures which are the 

 safeguard of our oyster beds, the foot-fishing [peche-a-'pied) was becoming 

 each year more unproductive. To-day it is prosecuted by companies of 

 from 500 to 1,000 persons, women as well as children, who find in it an 

 assured means of subsistence. 



It remains for me to say a word in reference to the attempts made 

 under the auspices of the administration to collect, in spite of the vio- 

 lence of the sea, the spawn which is each season thrown out from the 

 oyster beds. 



The pare which the administration has devoted to these experiments 

 is 40 meters square. The side which faces the open sea and the oppo- 

 site side are completely open, in order to give free access to the waters 

 freighted with spawn. The other two sides are protected by palisades. 



Tiles arranged in bunches, fascines of birchwood, and slabs of schist 

 are all employed as collectors. The spawn arrested in great abundance, 

 but by the time winter comes the violence of the sea has succeeded in 

 displacing the larger part of the generation which had established itself. 



The end sougbt by the administration, viz, to demonstrate that the 

 spawn is just as abundant at Cancale as at Le Vivier, has been attained. 

 The rest will be accomplished by private enterprise. 



It is hardly necessary to state that the measures of surveillance insti- 

 tuted by the department of the marine for the preservation of our oyster 

 beds have also served to shelter the pares from the cupidity of maraud- 



