988 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERTES. [46] 
cisive an influence upon them, that to improve the bed may be said to 
improve the oysters. 
The presence of oxide of iron in Morbihan is scarcely admissible, 
hence it must be the green vegetation that produces the color of the 
oyster. M. Charles has observed that vegetation tends to disappear 
around the oysters which become green; but he rightly admits that the 
process of turning is only possible because of particular dispositions of 
the animal, either illness or otherwise, which disappear at the period of 
spawning. 
However this may be, the fact remains that in the parks of Morbihan 
the green tinge, so much demanded by lovers of oysters in the south, 
may be obtained with great facility, and also that the color has nothing 
to do with fattening, nor with the special qualities of the oyster. 
CHAPTER V. 
MEASURES REQUIRED TO INSURE THE PROSPERITY OF OYSTER 
CULTURE. 
On the preceding pages, we have endeavored to point out the state of 
oyster culture in Morbihan. It is important to draw from these details 
some conclusions, to show what future is in reserve for this industry, and 
by what measures such a future may be assured. 
Principal cause of the failure of Coste.—It is evident to all that, in 
spite of the scientific knowledge, the zeal, and the labors of Coste, his 
attempts, so far as regards commercial results, were radically fruitless. 
Nevertheless, he had at his disposition apparatus, boats, auxiliaries as 
intelligent as devoted, and also, to a certain extent, the resources of 
the public treasury. Still the reason is very simple. That impersonal 
being, called the state, is incapable of creating any industry. It suf- 
ficed to relinquish oyster culture to the culturists, who, although intelli- 
gent and well informed, are, in the majority of cases, neither savants 
nor academicians, to insure success, where only failure had been pre- 
dicted. 
This is because the state lacks that powerful lever called individual 
interest. An occupation is not possible unless an assured profit may 
be realized from it. The merchant alone can be certain of this, from a 
study of the markets ane the demands of consumers. The poorest 
merchant in France is the state. The state has quite another part to 
play. Charged with the protection of all, it cannot descend from this 
elevated sphere of general usefulness into the arena, where opposing 
interests are contending—an arena which it always leaves defeated and 
often injured. To abandon its reserve and endeavor, by taxation, to 
create a national industry is an act of socialism, generous, perhaps, but 
from which others will derive the benefits, 
