718 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [36] 
suaded that these figures represent: the number of oysters which 
arrive at maturity more favorably than is really the case, since from 
every thousand of full-grown oysters it is certain that, on an aver- 
age, more than 440,000,000 young are produced. The correctness of 
my argument that the number of oysters which arrive at maturity 
is very small indeed as compared with the exceedingly large number of 
germs produced is corroborated by the experience of those who have 
engaged in oyster-culture in France and England. In the year 1870 
a small oyster-bed was discovered at the mouth of the Thames, north- 
east from Whitstable.* It was about 18 meters long by 6 meters broad. 
Forty-eight hours later 75 boats were there, close alongside of one an- 
other, fishing up the oysters. Upon every old oyster which was taken 
were found only from nine to ten young ones of different ages. This 
bed had never been previously disturbed, and the oysters were ac- 
cordingly found in their natural condition. Whoever is not informed 
in regard. to the small number which arrive at maturity, but knows 
only of their immense fecundity, will, in thinking of the growth and 
production of oysters, consider the oyster-beds as inexhaustible. It has, 
indeed, really been thought that if millions and millions of oysters were 
taken from a bed no harm would be done to its prosperity, since it was. 
the opinion that the dredges would leave everywhere as many breeding 
oysters as would be necessary to supply the place of those taken away,, 
by means of the immense number of young which would be produced. 
In accordance with this view, the oyster-fisheries were made entirely 
free in England in 1866. But the consequence of the continuous fish- 
ing which followed was everywhere a quick impoverishment of the beds, 
concerning which result the official reports upon the oyster-fisheries in 
France and England contain a vast number of authentic proofs. <Ac- 
cording to the statement of Mr. Webber, mayor of Falmouth, 700 men, 
working 300 boats, were profitably employed in oyster-fishing in the 
neighborhood of Falmouth so long as the old laws of close-time were 
observed. But since the year 1866, when those old laws were set aside, 
the beds have become so impoverished that now, in 1876, only about 40 
men, with less than 40 boats, can find employment, and even with this 
greatly diminished number of boats no single boat takes daily more 
than from 60 to 100 oysters, while formerly in the same time a boat could 
take from ten to twelve thousand. About the year 1830 an oyster-bed 
was discovered upon the English coast near Dudgeon Light, containing 
- an immense number of oysters, among which were very many old ones. 
* The statistics concerning English and French oyster-fishing were taken partially 
from my own notes, made during a visit to the English and French coasts, and partially 
from two official English reports: I. Report on the Oyster and Mussel Fisheries of 
France, made to the Board of Trade by Cholmondeley Pennel, Inspector of Oyster-fish- 
eries. London, 1868. II. Report from the select Commission on Oyster-fisheries. 1876. 
These reports are attached to summaries of the profits arising from oyster-fishing in 
France, which were delivered to the authorities at the French department of marine 
and fisheries. 
