THE NEW AET OF BEEEDING FISH. 97 



several matters touching the treatment of our 

 oyster-beds, and the means of favoring the mul- 

 tiplication of these molecules. A manufacturer 

 of Charente, M. Carbonnel, has conversed with the 

 Academy of Sciences several times lately, and thinks 

 it would be easy to establish on our coast at differ- 

 ent points such artificial oyster-beds. M. de Quat- 

 refages has also requested the naturalists on our 

 coasts to try the artificial fecundation of oysters, 

 and I am persuaded that in studying experimentally 

 all that relates to the generation of these molecules, 

 we shall arrive at results extremely interesting for 

 industry as well as science. But in the actual state 

 of our knowledge relative to the physiology of these 

 animals, we cannot pronounce on the value of the 

 mode of multiplication which the authors I have 

 just cited propose to employ. 



Whatever it be, after the entire results of which 

 I render you an account, and after experiments 

 analogous to those of Messrs. G-^hin and Remy, 

 made by M. Lefebvre, of Vaugorard, it seems clear 

 that with perseverance, we can with little expense 

 ameliorate the icthyological breed of France, and 

 obtain also for our territory covered with water, a 

 revenue much more considerable than that now de- 

 rived. 



This would be for the whole country, an increase 

 of riches, and trials of this kind appear to me all 

 the more iOiportant as several circumstances tend to 

 diminish the alimentary resource of our rivers. Thn 



5 



