356 WHAT CAN BE DONE IN FOUR YEARS. [CHAP. vm. 



plished, the rocks had to be blasted in order to find stones for 

 the construction of the park-walls ; then these had to be 

 built, and the ground had also to be paved in a rough and 

 ready kind of way ; foot-roads had also to be arranged for the 

 convenience of the farmers, and carriage-ways had likewise to 

 be made to admit of the progress of vehicles through the dif- 

 ferent farms. Ditches had to be contrived to carry off the 

 mud ; the parks had to be stocked with breeding oysters, and 

 to be kept carefully free from the various kinds of sea animals 

 that prey upon the oyster ; and many other daily duties had 

 to be performed that demanded the minute attention of the 

 owners. But all obstacles were in time overcome, and some 

 of the breeders have been so very successful of late years 

 as to be offered a sum of 100 for the brood attached 

 to twelve of their rows of stones, the cost of laying these 

 down being about two hundred francs ! To construct an 

 oyster-bed thirty yards square costs about 12 of Eng- 

 lish money, and it has been calculated that the return 

 from some of the beds has been as high as 1000 per 

 cent ! The whole industry of the lie is wonderful when it 

 is considered that it has been all organised in a period of 

 seven years. Except a few privately-kept oysters, there was 

 no oyster establishment on the island previous to 1858. 



The following authentic statistics, collected by Mr. Thomas 

 Ashworth, of the oyster industry of the island of Re, when 

 only hi the fourth year of culture, may prove interesting to 

 my readers : 



Parks for collecting spawn and breeding - 2,424 



Fattening-poiids (claires) - 839 



Supposed number of oysters in parks - 74,242,038 



Aggregate number in the claires 1,026,282 



Revenue of the parks 1,086,230 francs. 



Revenue of the claires - 40,015 



Hectares of ground in parks and claires 146 



Proprietors of beds 1,700 



