IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND FKANCE. 35 



The entire sum realized by the sale of Irish oysters is difficult to 

 ascertain, but it does not exceed £50,000 per annum * and assuming 

 no increase whatever in production or capture, that amount 

 might be greatly augmented by not allowing oysters under a cer- 

 tain size to be exported, and by affording the poorer classes 

 greater facilities for obtaining portions of the foreshore for the 

 formation of pares and claires. 



Whatever trouble and uncertainty attends breeding, there is 

 but comparatively little with regard to fattening, and success in 

 the latter would lead the way for experiments with regard to the 

 former. 



The various Methods of Oyster Culture reviewed and explained. 

 The most ancient method of oyster culture of which we have 

 any record is that practised in Lake Fusaro, which has nourished 

 more or less for about 1,900 years. This, no doubt, is the origin 

 of all oyster culture in Europe. The following two cuts are 

 illustrative of the methods by which oyster culture is there 

 carried on. In the first, fascines are suspended some few feet 

 above the bottom, to which the rising spat of the oysters becomes 

 attached. In the second, artificial heaps of stones are thickly 

 surrounded with stakes, and on these the oysters become fixed, 

 and the stakes are drawn or the stones lifted for the purpose of 



Fig. 18. 



pence a dozen, which is certainly below the ordinary selling price, we shall 

 then have an annual expenditure in England of about three millions sterling in 

 oysters alone! Could any fact more powerfully attest the value of this branch 

 of commerce?" — From the Popular Science Review. 



"It is not easy to arrive at correct statistics of what London requires in the 

 way of oysters ; but, if we set the number down as being nearly 800,000,000 we 

 shall not be very far wrong." — From Bertram's Harvest of the Sea, p. 373. 



Assuming that as much oysters are consumed in the provinces as in London, 

 and calculating the price at an average of only 5s. per 100, the result would be 

 an expenditure of £4,000,000. 



The vast proportion of these oysters are taken from the great ocean beds, far 

 beyond the three miles limit, and from private beds also not under Government 

 control. 



* Ten years ago and even later oysters were sold at Arldow as low as 45. per 

 barrel; in 1869 they sold as high as 25s. — the average for the year being 17*. 

 9d. per barrel for all sizes. The sum realized for oysters in Ireland for some 

 years past has, owing to the increased price, been about the same, notwith- 

 standing the diminished production. 



C 2 



