[17] OYSTER AND MUSSEL INDUSTRIES. 841 
attempted, simplified and improved by the introduction of the methods 
of Lake Fusaro, would become the source of a much more considerable 
and lucrative commérce; but in order that it may make this advance 
itis necessary to organize the means of cultivation upon a greater scale; 
to make the reservoirs deeper in order to introduce a greater volume of 
of water when the season requires it; to raise and strengthen the dikes 
in order that they may resist a greater pressure; to connect the flood- 
gates in such a manner as to easily regulate the circulation of the 
waters; to establish reservoirs in which these waters can repose and 
settle in part before passing into the claires, and remain in reserve for 
the needs of the work. Hach establishment, thus transformed into a 
true workshop, where the action of man creates all the influencing con- 
ditions and varies them at his will, will perform at the same time the 
functions of an artificial bed furnishing seed, and of an apparatus for 
perfecting the crop; so that the oysters which have become green and 
marketable will be replaced every year in the claires by their progeny, 
which will be carefully gathered and reared in the place where they 
were born; giving thus, by this unceasing rotation, constantly renewed 
products. 
The oysters, in fact, which live in the claires become milky there as 
they do upon the natural beds. They deposit spat with the same pro- 
fusion, but this spat, finding no solid support upon the soft slime 
which the sea carries there, inevitably perish, unless they attach them- 
selves to the vertical walls of some structure or the boundary stones, by 
the aid of which, in certain localities, as at Oléron for example, they 
mark the limits of submarine fish ponds which are not uncovered until 
the great spring-tides. These live-ponds are not destined for reproduc- 
tion, for this kind of industry is not practiced upon any part of the coast 
of France; but small as is the quantity of spat (naissain, as the young 
oysters are called) which remain on the stones placed there for another 
purpose, it nevertheless indicates the benefit which might be derived 
from a mode of cultivation rationally organized. 
Collecting, in this way, the progeny of the oyster in the elaires, as they 
gather that of mussels within the inclosures (bouchots) of Hsnandes, 
stocks these artificial reservoirs with thousands of beings, each of which 
passes its life there held by an artifice, in order that it may be brought 
to perfection in adult age; such is the ingenious industry which it is at- 
tempted to create, and which awaits its Walton to utilize these immense 
riches. The products of this new mode of cultivation, obtained by 
economy, will acquire qualities far superior to those which the present 
method gives them; for, born in the claires, from parents raised therein, 
they will add to the advantages of education those of inheritance. 
The deposit of mud in the waters being the only obstacle to the pres- 
ervation of the progeny of oysters in the claires, a simple means may be 
found to remedy this evil and save the offspring. This will be to place 
for the spat at a certain height above the bottom, and in such a position 
