IN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND FRANCE. 31 



The Wexford banks may be said to be a continuation of those 

 of Arklow ; the number of boats, twenty-eight ; the sum realized 

 in 1869, £2,200. A great decrease as regards former years. 

 Here, as at Arklow, by the desire of the fishermen themselves, 

 the close season is now fixed from 30th April to 1st September. 

 Twenty years ago the price per thousand was only six shillings, 

 now it sometimes reaches nearly forty shillings. 



In each of the other places a considerable diminution has 

 occurred, attributed to over- dredging and the wholesale exporta- 

 tion of young brood, and in some instances to failure of spat. 



Cases were not wanting in Ireland where positive injury had 

 arisen from want of sufficient dredging, as in the Estuary of the 

 Shannon, near Scattery Island, and at Clew Bay, where the result 

 of some dredging operations, undertaken by the Commissioners, 

 showed that a vast amount of weeds and dirt had accumulated on 

 the beds which judicious dredging would have removed. The 

 quantity of oysters procurable was, however, probably not worth the 

 labour necessary from the unsuitable gear used in those localities. 



The reasons assigned by the numerous witnesses examined as 

 to the cause of the decrease on many beds around the coast were 

 altogether hypothetical; nothing could well be imagined more 

 contradictory, inconsistent, and irreconcilable than the assertions 

 of persons, even from the same locality ; each giving a different 

 account as interest, prejudice, or opposition to what they deemed 

 encroachments on their rights, prompted. 



The only thing that could be relied on as a fact was the un- 

 doubted decrease of the oysters, but to account for it according 

 to the evidence was simply impossible. Pari passu, however, with 

 this diminution was made evident the fact of a large increase in 

 dredging, so that it is only fair to assume that one of the reasons 

 for exhaustion must have proceeded from that cause. There 

 may also have been at the same time a certain amount of absence 

 of spat, but whether this might or might not have been very much 

 produced by diminution of stock, caused by over-dredging, com- 

 bined with a reckless and wholesale export of the brood oysters, 

 it is very hard to determine. 



Perhaps one of the most important points for consideration is 

 the extensive grants made by the Board of Public Works (in whom 

 the management of the Sea Fisheries was vested up to the year 

 1869) of portions of foreshore and sea bottom, amounting alto- 

 gether to 100 grants or licences as they are termed, and which 

 comprise in the aggregate nearly 17,000 acres of some of the 

 most desirable oyster ground in the country. 



The smallest area so granted amounting to three acres, and the 

 largest to 1,800 acres. 



A list of these licences and the extent of the portions so allotted 

 will be found in the Appendix F. These licences were supposed 

 only'to be granted after a full inquiry on the spot and satisfactory 

 proof given that not only public rights would 4 not be interfered 

 with to any appreciable extent, but that advantage to the public 

 would be likely to follow from increased oyster production. 



It is much to be regretted that these undertakings have as a 

 whole fallen very far short of realizing the expectations of those 



