[31] OYSTER CULTURE IN MORBIHAN. 973 
The second consists in shutting the young oyster up in cases, the sides 
and top of which, being made of wire gauze, permit the action of the air, 
light, and current, while they present an insurmountable obstacle to the 
entrance of such enemies as the crabs and shrimps. 
These two systems are criticised and defended with equal vigor, and 
both tend to favor industrial results. 
In order to throw light upon the subject, without attempting to com- 
pletely elucidate it, we should, necessarily, make known the different 
opinions of the various culturists. 
‘Some desire to preserve their tiles,” says Dr. Henri Leroux, “and so 
cover them with a thick coating of lime, which they remove every year 
with the young oysters; others spread only a thin coating of lime over 
their tiles, which the young oysters soon absorb to their own gain, and 
thus fix themselves firmly on the tile itself. 
“Tn the first instance, the labor of removal will be much easier and 
less expensive, and the plastered tiles will be as good as new for the 
next year. These advantages are very tempting; but at the age of six or 
eight months the young oyster, separated from the surface upon which 
it had fixed itself, is flattened, and the valves become very delicate, 
especially the lower one, which is transparent. 
“Tn this condition, the oyster is without protection, and is exposed to 
the voracity of its enemies. A lot of forty thousand, exposed in this 
way, disappeared in the course of two weeks. This has twice been our 
experience. 
“Tf, in order to avoid such a disaster, the culturist puts his oysters in 
basins, he exposes himself to the same dangers; we have seen quite re- 
cently, in a basin measuring something like two thousand square yards, 
more than a million oysters disappear, stifled under the sand, stirred up 
by crabs and black worms. 
‘““We must, therefore, have recourse to boxes, covered with wire gauze, 
in order to save the oysters; but should we not consider the expense of 
this, when there are several millions of oysters to be preserved ? 
“Tf, on the other hand, the tiles are kept in the water until the second 
year, when the oysters will have attained sufficient strength, they will be 
badly shaped, and the economy in the matter of tiles will become a source 
of vexation and deception. On the contrary, tiles covered with a calea- 
reous coating appear to us to present much greater security. The pre- 
liminary labor is more difficult and more prolonged than in the case of 
the tile with the thick coating; but the young oyster, adhering firmly to 
the tile, still remains fixed upon it, even when, with a pair of pincers of 
ourinvention, the tile has been easily cut away, into pieces about the size 
of the young mollusks. Thus placed free from one another in the raising 
parks, they are in a condition to defend themselves against their greatest 
enemies (crabs and oyster-devouring fishes), by the weight and strength 
of the hard tile covering.” 
To this opinion, which appears to be based upon reasonable and logi- 
