000 ; the oysters having almost entirely disappeared from 
the beds, though on account of the suffering condition of the 
inhabitants of the shores it was almost impossible to prevent 
it. In 1870 there was a complete wreck of the bottom, which 
could only be remedied by a total prohibition of the fisheries 
for several years. From the beds of the districts of Roche- 
fort, Marennes and island of Olevon, on the west coast of 
France, there were taken in 1853 and 1854 10,000,000 oysters, 
and in 1854-5 15,000,000. 
On account of exhaustive fishing in 1863-4 only 400,000 
could be obtained. According to the testimony of Mr. Web- 
ber, Mayor of Falmouth, England, about 700 men, working 
300 boats, were employed in a profitable oyster fishery in 
the neighborhood of Falmouth until 1866, when the old laws 
enforcing a “ close time ” were repealed, under an impres- 
sion that owing to the great productive powers of the oyster 
it would be impossible to remove a sufficient number to pre- 
vent the restocking of the beds. Since 1866 the beds have 
become so impoverished from excessive and continual fishing 
that in 1876 only 40 men and 40 boats could find employment, 
and small as the number is, they could not take more than 60 
or 100 oysters a day, while formally, in the same time, a boat 
could take from 10,000 to 12,000. According to the state- 
ment of Mr. Messum, an oyster dealer, and secretary of an 
oyster company at Ems worth, England, made before the Com- 
mission for the Investigation of Oyster Fisheries in May, 1876, 
there were in the harbor of Emsworth, between the years of 
1840 and 1850, so many oysters that one man in five hours 
could take from 24,000 to 32,000. In consequence of over- 
fishing in 1858, scarcely ten vessels could find loads, and in 
1868 a dredger in five hours could not find more than twenty 
oysters. The oyster fisheries of Jersey, in the English Chan- 
nel, afforded employment to 400 vessels. In six or seven 
years the dredging became so extensive and the beds so ex- 
hausted that only three or four vessels could find employ- 
ment, and the crews of even that small number had to do 
additional work on shore in order to support themselves. 
The foregoing are a few of, though by no means all, the in- 
