EDIBLE OYSTEKS. 249 



fixed ; and each of the animated particles of which it 

 consists grows so rapidly that in two or three years it 

 becomes edible. M. Coste declares that he saw stakes 

 pulled up from the artificial banks, and covered with 

 three distinct crops of oysters, which had been fixed 

 about thirty months. The first of these was fit for the 

 market ; while the last, said to be thirty or forty days 

 old, was about the size of a large lentil ; " a growth 

 sufficiently surprising," observes M. Coste, "if we re- 

 member that, at the time of their expulsion, they 

 were only of the diameter of the fifth of a millimetre " 

 (0.03937 inch). When the fishing season has arrived 

 the stakes and branches are pulled up, and one by one 

 relieved of all the oysters reckoned marketable ; and 

 then, after the fruit of these artificial grapes has been 

 gathered, the apparatus is replaced till a new genera- 

 tion yields another crop. At other times the stakes 

 are not removed, and the oysters are merely detached 

 by means of a hook with many branches. The source 

 of these generations remains permanent, perpetuating 

 and renewing itself incessantly by the annual addition 

 of the very few which do not desert their birthplace. 

 The ex-King of Naples, not being remarkable for en- 

 ergy, was too careless to develop this singular species 

 of industry ; but what oyster-rearing at Fusaro might 

 yield, in the hands of a private speculator, may be 

 guessed from the fact of its restricted application yield- 

 ing a revenue of 32,000 francs. M. Coste justly ob- 

 serves : " Transferred to the salt ponds on our coast, it 

 would be a source of wealth to our population; ex- 

 tended and modified in its application to natural banks 

 in the midst of the ocean, it would attain the propor- 

 tions of an enterprise of general utility. Comparing 

 the mode followed at Fusaro with that followed on the 

 natural banks in the ocean, it is easy to perceive that, 

 if the latter be not suppressed, the source of produc- 

 tion must infallibly be soon exhausted. Speculation, 

 in fact, regardless of future generations, which it would 



