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754 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES [2] . 
sumers. In 1858 M. Coste addressed to the Emperor a report upon the 
condition of the oyster fisheries of the coast, and exposed in these terms 
the deplorable impoverishment of “the oyster industry, which‘has fallen 
into such decline that unless prompt mexsures are taken, the source of all 
production will very soon be entirely exhausted. At Rochelle, Maren- 
nes, Rochefort, and the islands of Ré and Oléron, of twenty-three banks, 
which formerly constituted one of the sources of wealth of this part of 
the coast, eighteen are completely depopulated; while those which yet 
furnish oysters are seriously affected by the increasing invasion of mus- 
sels. Moreover, the oyster breeders of these regions are no longer able 
to find there, not to mention those necessary for consumption, a suffi- 
cient harvest to supply their ‘parks’ and ‘claires’ with oysters, which 
are there fattened and brought to perfection, and are obliged to bring 
them, at great expense, from the coast of Brittany. The bay of St. 
Brieux, which is so admirably and naturally adapted to the production 
of the oyster, and where there formerly existed, upon a hard and per- 
manent bottom, thirteen beds in full activity, has to-day not more than 
three beds, from which twenty boats might in a few days carry away the 
last oyster. At the time when the gulf was in its prosperous condition, 
more than two hundred vessels, manned by fourteen hundred men, were 
engaged in fishing each year from the 1st of October to the 1st of April, 
and took from these waters a harvest valued at three to four hundred 
thousand frances ($60,000 to $80,000). In the harbor of Brest, and at 
the mouths of the rivers in Brittany, the decrease has been less rapid, 
because these fertile sea-territories have net as yet been subjected to 
so active a fishing; but as the decimation of other parts of our coast 
forces us to resort to these beds for what can no longer be found else- 
where, they will soon share in the general ruin. At Cancale and Gran- 
ville, two classical quarters for the growth of the oyster, it is only by 
dint of care and good administration that they succeed, not in increas- 
ing the crop, but in moderating its decline.” Such, then, was the de- 
plorable condition of the oyster industry upon the coast of France in 
1858, when M. Coste wrote his report,—a condition much more threaten- 
ing for the future, in that it coincided exactly with the completion of 
our net-work of railroads, which permitted the products of the ocean to 
be carried in a few hours throughout the entire territory of France, even 
to the departments most remote from the sea, thus tending unquestion- 
ably to increase the consumption by placing a large number of our peo- 
ple in a position to profit by the delicacies which were formerly forbid- 
den them, on account of their distance from the centers of production. A 
continued rise in the price of oysters, coincident with a decrease in their 
delicacy and fatness, were the immediate results of this state of things. 
But still another very grave and menacing result was the continued 
diminution of our maritime population, the sole source whence, in our 
days, are recruited the sailors for our fleets; for, where fifty boats, each 
with from five to eight men, formerly found profitable labor in gather- 
