866 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [42] 
to Your Majesty; a scheme which aimed to retain on the spawning beds, 
by means of a simple device, the seed which in a state of nature is dis- 
persed by the currents, and to create sources of wealth wherever the 
bottoms are not subject to the invasion of mud. 
No region along our coast offered at the same time so vast and so ap- 
propriate a theater for drawing public attention to the solution of this 
double problem; for the bottoms are undisturbed, though the currents 
rush over them at times with such violence that superficial thinkers pre- 
judged this to be an inevitable cause of failure. Everything there de- 
pended on a triumph of art over nature, for it was necessary not only 
that material from various provinces should be transplanted to a foreign 
land, but also that the progeny of this exiled population be protected 
from the perturbation of the waters. 
It will not be out of place, sire, for the honor of science, to state here 
in detail how the dominion of the sea is made accessible to industry, 
for, in providing new methods applicable to the business, it creates, for 
its abstract studies, instruments of investigation which extend its range 
to regions yet unexplored. 
The planting of the reproductive oysters, opened in the month of 
March, closed under my own supervision towards the end of April. In 
this brief period 3,000,000 of individuals, some taken in the high seas, 
others at Cancale, and others from Tréquier, were distributed over ten 
long beds, situated in different parts of the gulf, and together repre- 
senting an area of 1,000 hectares; beds previously traced on a marine 
map, indicating the productive fields, and provided with signals in- 
tended to facilitate the movements of the vessels engaged in the stock- 
ing. But in order that the planting should be done with the regularity 
of a practical farmer, and-that the mother oysters should be sufficiently 
separated so as not to interfere with each other, a government steam- 
vessel, first the Ariel, and then the Antelope, towing the launches, and 
a basquine filled with oysters, would make alternate trips to either ex- 
tremity of the line, where a small boat, placed crosswise, designated the 
spot upon which operations should begin. Then, steaming to the other 
end, designated by another boat, it would go around this in following 
the long axis of the rectangular space designated by the flag signals, 
and return to the starting point, like a plow which makes two parallel 
furrows in a field. : 
While our tow-boat was thus engaged, the sailors beionging to it were 
placed on board the accompanying launches and employed in emptying 
the hampers, filled with oysters, which they had previously arranged in 
rows along the decks, and as they were gradually thrown overboard 
they sank to the bottom and spread themselves over the surface intended 
to become stocked by their seed. To insure the success of the work, it 
was not only necessary that the oysters should be planted under the 
conditions most favorable to their propagation, but also to build around 
and above them efficient means of securing the progeny and of compell- 
