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THE FOOD FISHERIES OF FRANCE. 
HE very latest novelty in French oyster culture is the 
introductiom by Madlle. Sarah Felix, the sister of 
the late Madame Rachel, of the American horse-shoe 
oyster. This lady is an enthusiastic ostreoculturist, and 
she has a suite of packs near Havre, which are said to be 
very profitable. Many of Madlle. Felix’s countrymen have 
of late years taken to oyster farming, and in a short time 
the foreshores of France will be crowded with oyster beds, 
when one of the greatest industries of that country will 
assuredly be the breeding and fattening of that popular 
shell fish. The expense of rearing oysters is so trifling, 
and the returns so large, that thousands of the seafaring 
people have gone into the business, and many of the inland 
vine growers and general farmers have removed to the coast 
in order to try there luck at this new industry. There is 
a great demand for the oyster in all parts of France, and 
as the mollusk may be kept out of the water for a few days 
without any harm, or can be kept in tanks and be artifi- 
cially fed till such time as it is wanted for table purposes, a 
number of fishermen who could not find an outlet for either 
their round or flat fish in consequence of the rapid transit 
required to insure their fish being fresh on arrival at the 
market, have within a year or two taken to the rearing and 
fattening of oysters. There are few places now on the 
shores of France where oyster culture is not carried on in 
some one of its varied phases; there are either viviers for 
keeping them alive till called for, parcs for breeding them 
n, claires for fattening them, or pits for greening them. 
And the French Government, with a view to promote so 
laudable an industry, has established model beds on various 
parts of the coast, in order to teach practically the art of 
oyster farming. As well as being practically useful in a 
commercial sense, these model beds have been of great use 
to M. Coste and other French naturalists, by allowing them 
to determine the exact age at which the oyster becomes re- 
productive, without which knowledge no animal, sea or land, 
can be profitably bred. The French parc system also ad- 
mits of the proper study of the spat mystery, which is now 
attracting the gravest attention of all interested in the 
natural and economic history of the oyster. Asan example 
of the spat difficulty, it may be mentioned, that while in 
the basin of Arcachon, the spat has never been known to 
