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a few years ago was of no vahie; so that this branch of industry now realizes an extraordinary revenue, and 
spreads comfort amongst families which were formerly in a state of comparative indigence. A scries of 
enormous and unproductive mud banks, occupying a stretch of shore about 4 leagues in length, are 
now so transformed and the whole place so changed as to appear to be the work of a miracle. 
Dr. Kemmcrcr, of St. Martin’s, Island of Ro, has invented a tile which he covers with some kind 
of composition that can, when occasion requires, be peeled off, and this plan is useful for the transference 
of the oyster from the collecting pare to the fattening claire. 
Lake Eusaro is highly interesting as being the first seat of oyster culture. It is the Avernus of 
Virgil. It is still devoted to the highly profitable art of oyster-farming. The mode of oyster breeding 
at this place is now, as it was eighteen centui’ies ago, to erect artificial pyramids of stones in the water, 
surrounded by stakes of wood, in order to intercept the spawn. Fagots of branches were also used to 
collect the spawn, which must find a holding-on place within forty-eight hours after its emission, or it will' 
be lost for ever. 
The Eoyal Commission (Ireland) say :—Hurdles and fascines have been found to answer well as 
collectors, and they will be found cheaper. They arc fixed in rows, by means of pegs, about 2 or 3 feet 
above the oysters, which arc scattered on the soil under them. 
Furze bushes are also found to answer fairly, hut fascines and bushes are scarcely so suitable in a 
tide-way, in consequence of the liability of the twigs to catch weed, break, and float away, when the spat 
is carried with them. In all cases when wood is employed for collectors, it should be dry, hard, and 
sapless, and cut, at least, in the preceding season. Oysters are more easily detached from wood collectors; 
the loss or damage to the shell breaking them off is least upon fascines, as the twigs are easily broken off; 
the loss is greater on hurdles, greater still on tiles, ayd greatest of all on stones. The young oyster, 
though somewhat malformed at times on twigs, soon regains its shape when detached without damage. 
Tiles are largely used in France because they are cheap—about £2 per thousand. One cultivator, at 
Auray, possesses 200,000 tiles, and on these he obtained, in 18G9, six millions of oysters. 
11. In New South Wales the production of oysters is immensely beyond our present 
requirements, and Nature has also provided us so amply with holding-on places (rocks, mangrove trees, 
&c.) for collecting the spat, that it appears almost superfluous for us to allude to the subject of oyster- 
breeding ; but this state of things may not always continue, and at some future time information on 
breeding oysters will be as useful as that on the growth and fattening of oysters is at the present 
time. 
% 
12. As Respects the Fattening of Oysters.—The nature of the bed or soil on which it rests is 
a matter of the greatest importance. Bertram says the beds of “natives” are all situated on the 
London clay, or on similar formations. * * * Tlie portion of the beds set apart for the rearing 
of “ natives” is as sacred as the waxen cells devoted to the growth of queen bees. But, although called 
“ natives,” in many instances they are not “natives” at all, but are* on the contrary, a grand mixture of 
all kinds of oysters, being brought from Prestonpans and Newhaven, in the Firth of Forth, and from 
many other places, to augment the stock. Many circumstances highly favourable to the growth and 
fattening of oysters arc the reverse for successful breeding. Growth and fattening will proceed where 
there may be a large amount of fresh water and a strong current: the former would prove prejudicial 
to spatting, and the latter tend to prevent the adhesion of spat—at least in the locality at which it is 
voided. It is a remarkable fact that there arc no fine flavoured oysters where there is not fresh 
water, and this fact was noticed by Pliny more than eighteen hundred years ago. The Royal 
Commission (Ireland) says: For fattening there are few places better than a salt marsh. The fattening 
ponds (termed claires) at Marennes and La Trembladc, of which sketches arc appended, arc at both 
places formed out of salt marshes, and arc in many instances only old disused saltenis [or salt pans, in 
which rough salt was made. The number of oysters laid down in claires is proportioned to the time it is 
intended they should remain there ; for as the food of the oyster is limited, a smaller number will of 
course fatten more rapidly than a larger number. The average distribution is about two or three to the 
square foot. The oysters thus fattened are of excellent flavour and quality. 
Mr. Ohohnondehy Pennell^ Inspector of the English Oy.ster Fisheries, who was sent by the Board 
of Trade to inspect and report upon the French modes of oyster culture, says in his report:—“The 
fattening pits (claires) are excavated from one to two feet deep, and are of all shapes and sizes, from ten 
to sixty yards square, which latter is the maximum, the usual size being from forty to fifty yards square. 
It is in these pita that the celebrated green oysters are fattened. Round the margin of the claires, at 
Marennes, a trench or channel is excavated a yard or two wide, and an extra foot deep, the object of which 
ia to equalize the temperature when the shallower water becomes too hot or too cold. Ono portion of the 
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