[49] ‘THE OYSTER AND OYSTER-CULTURE. 731 
In former times, fishing was carried on only in those places where the 
oysters lay thickly together, for where only a few oysters could be caught 
it did not pay to fish, because of the low price; hence all of those banks 
which were covered only with scattered oysters were left to rest until 
a sufficient number of mature oysters had accumulated upon them to 
repay the labor of fishing. But when, however, the number of oyster- 
eaters increased, and likewise the price of oysters, it became profitable 
to fish upon less fertile stretches, and the dredges were used so per- 
sistently that finally very little more could be found upon the banks. 
Before the time of railroads the decline in price of oysters regulated the 
fishing in favor of a good condition of the beds; but since the time of 
railroads the ever-increasing price has acted as an incentive to the oys- 
termen to depopulate their banks. The official reports upon French 
and English oyster-breeding contain abundant proofs of this, as evi- 
denced by the facts there set forth. The oyster-fishers of Cancale were 
made happy by receiving, each succeeding year, for those oysters which 
they sent fresh to Paris, more money than they had received the year 
before, and the possibility of depopulating their rich banks was not 
thought of. 
Learned authorities had said that every mature breeding oyster pro- 
duced from two to three millions of young. They believed, then, that 
if they left upon the beds only a hundred breeding oysters they would 
be doing all that was necessary in order, in a short time, to find upon the 
overfished beds two hundred to three hundred million descendants of 
the same. Up to 1854, the oyster-beds of Rochefort, Marennes, and the 
island of Oléron were fished with some regard to their preservation, 
since their oysters found a market only in those places which were situ- 
ated along the neighboring coast. But in 1854 Rochefort was placed in 
connection with the interior by means of the network of railroads, and 
the market for these oysters, and the profits from them, increased so 
much that they were taken until these beds were almost entirely depop- 
ulated. From 15,000,000 in 1854~55, the catch fell off to 400,000 in 
1863~64. (See chapter 9, p. 37.) 
The last report upon the English oyster-fisheries in the year 1876, 
contains many instructive instances of the great advance in price as the 
result of the decrease in number of oysters. At Whitstable, where the 
finest kinds of native oysters are produced, the price for a bushel, 1,400 to 
1,600 oysters, was, during the period from 1852 to 1862, never higher than 
£2 2s. sterling. In 1863~64 it had risen to £4 10s., in 1869 to £8, 
and in 1876 to £12 sterling. Thus, in 1876, a single oyster cost there 
about 16 pfennige (3 to 4 cents) in our currency. 
At Colchester, another celebrated market for oysters on the east coast 
of England, a bushel of oysters cost, during the years 1856-63, 66s.; 
186465, 80s.; 1865-66, 95s.; 186667, 100s.; 1867~68, 130s., English 
money.* 
* Report upon oyster-fisheries, 1876, p. 63. 
