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In the town of St. Valery-sur-Somme, in France, arti- 

 ficial breeding, rearing, and fattening of Mussels, upon prin- 

 ciples akin to those which obtain in ostreaculture, is carried 

 on, and the success attained is such as to be worthy of a 

 record in the history of attempts made to utilise the un- 

 bounded wealth of food lying ready to man's hand along 

 the sea-shore. Lines of wattled stakes, averaging 5 30 yards 

 in length, are driven in the sand close to the fair-way, just 

 above low water-mark. These bouchots de grand flot, as 

 they are called, extend over twenty-five acres. They serve 

 for fixing the spat, which is floated up to them by the 

 tidal currents, and constitute a collecting ground for 

 brood, which are afterwards removed into shallow tanks 

 of about fifty acres, dug out high on the strands between 

 the tide marks. They are puddled with clay, and fitted 

 with sluice-gates. The salt water in these tanks is slightly 

 admixed with soft river water. They also serve as nur- 

 series for the young Mussels, which hang in clusters and 

 gather on wattles. When they attain proper size for 

 transplanting, they are removed into the pare, where 

 they will grow and develop into marketable Mussels. 

 All this is being successfully carried out by M. Lemaire, 

 who obtained from the French Government, in 1873, 

 leave to appropriate a small strip of 40 acres of the 

 foreshore fringing the low sandy estuary of the Somme. 

 The success of this short experiment was so marked, that 

 after an official visit paid by the Minister of Marine, and a 

 number of savants, including M. Coste, who had predicted 

 a failure, the original concession was extended to 620 acres. 



There are numerous other places on the Continent of 

 Europe where Oyster and Mussel culture is successfully 

 carried on. 



The secret of the whole matter is, where Mussel and 



