OUE S^FA FISHERIES, 261 



valuable an edible deserves. In England, in certain 

 favoured localities, as the eastern coast, companies 

 have had the cultivation of oysters in hand, and are 

 making very handsome revenues from supplying the- 

 markets ; but they are few, compared Tvith the wide 

 fields which are open to such cultivation. In Ireland, 

 the attention of many gentlemen has been particularly 

 turned to this product ; and during the year 1860j 

 seventeen gentlemen had obtained licences for the 

 planting of artificial oyster-beds on various parts of 

 the coasts. A suitable locality having been chosen 

 and obtained, the cost of planting and preserving an 

 oyster-bed is small when contrasted with the enor- 

 mous profits reaped from it, and the subject is well 

 worth the more general attention of proprietors by 

 estuaries, sea lochs, and such localities ap are favour- 

 able for the planting of oyster-beds. The French are 

 largely engaged in ostreaculture. The only bit of 

 legislation which has been perpetrated by our 

 Government in respect to this practice here, has 

 been a very unjust and undesirable one. The case 

 of the Heme Bay Oyster Company has been so weU 

 and fully placed before the public, that I need 

 scarcely enter on it at length here. The facts are 

 simple : a private company, whose prospectus was 

 a very remarkable and unusual one, applied to. Par- 



