252 IRISH OYSTER-BEDS. 



nature," says an enthusiast, for the laying down of 

 oyster-farms : every inch of the bottom of that estuary 

 might be lined thick with oysters from Alloa to North 

 Berwick, and a thousand oyster-farmers carry on a highly 

 remunerative business. 



Turning to Ireland, we find that its people are begin- 

 ning to recognize the resources of their seaboard, and that 

 numerous applications have been made of late years for 

 the formation of oyster-beds on various parts of the coast. 

 The result has been that some six thousand to seven 

 thousand acres have been granted by the Fishery Com- 

 missioners to several persons for the purposes of oyster- 

 farming. The authority to whom we have already been 

 indebted remarks, in reference to the Irish oyster-fisheries, 

 as a curious fact, that although the Irish " natives " had 

 at one time a very bad reputation, all the great banks 

 have been cleaned out by over-fishing. Thus, the cele- 

 brated Carlingford beds, the beds of Sligo, and the banks 

 of Clare, have been exhausted, owing to the culpable 

 ignorance of the fishers, who have yearly reaped without 

 sowing, and yet continued to expect an abundant harvest ! 

 On the famous Tralee beds it is declared to be difficult to 

 find a shell ; while some of the remaining beds have been 

 nearly exhausted by the transportation of the young 

 oysters to the English banks. It is recorded, as the 

 opinion of a distinguished Thames oyster-farmer, who has 

 carefully surveyed the Irish coast, that it contains many 

 excellent spots for the laying down of oyster-beds, and 

 that a considerable commerce might be carried on, if not 

 in oysters for consumption, at any rate in brood for the 

 Thames oyster companies. 



From what we have said, the reader will understand 



