The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-19 00:00:00

The Food Fisheries of France.

(From the Times.)

The very latest novelty in French oyster culture
is the introduction by Mdlle. Sarah Felix, the sister
of the late Madame Rachel, of the American horse-

shoe oyster. This lady is an enthusiastic ostreocul-
turist, and she has a suite of packs near Havre,
which are said to be very profitable. Many of Mdlle.
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 re-
moved to the coast in order to try their 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 artificially 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, pares for breed-
ing them in, 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 IN hich the oyster
becomes reproductive, without which knowledge no
animal, sea or land, can be profitably bred. The
French part system also admits 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. As an example of
the spat difficulty, it may be mentioned that while
in the basin of Arcachon the spat has never been
known to fail, yet around the Ile de Re the fall for
these some years back has been very intermittent,
as it has also been on the English beds. In the
sheltered basin of Arcachon the plentiful spatting
may be accounted for on the principle that the spat
has nowhere else to go—it mustifall within the basin.
In an open expanse of sea, it is different ; the spat
may be carried away to great distances by tidal in-
fluence, or a sharp breeze upon the water may waft
the oyster seed away for many a long mile. Every
bed has its own time for spatting ; thus one division
of the Re beds may be spatting on a fine warm day,
when the sea is like glass, so that the spat cannot
fail to fall ; while, on another portion of the island,
the spat may fall on a windy day, be thus left to the
tender mercy of a fiercely receding tide, and so be
lost, or fall, mayhap, on inaccessible rocks, a long
way from the shore. On the Isle of Oleron, which
supplies the green oyster breeders of Marennes with
such large quantities, it is quite certain that in the
course of the summer a friendly wave will waftlarge
quantities of spat into the artificial pares, when it is
known ,that the oysters in these parts have not
spawned. Where does this foreign spat come from ?
The men say it comes off some of the natural beds
of the adjoining sea—is driven in by the tide, and
finds a welcome resting place on the artificial re-
ceivers of their pares. It is altogether an erroneous
idea to suppose that there are some seasons when
the oyster does not spat because of, the cold wea-
ther, &c. Some of the pares had spatted at Ar-
cachon this year in very ungenial weather. The
spatting of the oyster does not depend on the
weather at all, but the destination of the spat
does, because if the tiny seedling oyster does not
fall on propitious ground it is lost for ever.
New oyster beds are of ten discovered in
places where it is certain oysters did not exist in
previous years—how came they then to be formed ?
The spat must have been blown upon that ground
by the ill wind that carried it away from the spot
where it was expected to fall. If the spat excluded
by the large quantity of oysters known to be stocked
in the pares at Whitstable, in Kent, the home of the
native, were always to fall on the cultch of Whit-
stable, instead of on the adjoining flats and else-
where, the company would soon become enormously
wealthy. At present one of the largest items of
their annual expenditure is for brood to be fattened
for the market. This brood they buy everywhere,
in order to keep the London oyster taverns con-
stantly stocked with natives.
The difference between French and English oyster
farming is not much, but the little that there is is of
great importance in the economy of a large oyster
farm. The endeavour of the French is to obtain spat
or brood without purchase; hitherto this has not
been the case in England; the dredgermen are but
too willing to pay for brood when it can be obtained,
but of late years, in consequence of a paucity of spat,
it has become scarce and ill to get. The new oyster
farms which have been laid down in England of late
years are all on the French plan, and already we are
hearing of their success, spat having fallen upon
some of them in great plenty. In the Firth of Forth
oyster beds no pains are taken to protect the oyster,
the grounds are never overhauled or worked, and
the brood is sold by the hogshead to all and sundry
who will come and buy it; the result, as may be ex-
pected, is that in Edinburgh oysters are scarce, are
also small in size, and dear. While the men of Whit-
stable have become rich by their thrift the men of
Newhaven have become poor from consenting to the
spoliation of their oyster beds, which are naturally
the finest in the world. They have at length killed
the goose for the sake of the golden egg.
Any attempt to find out the figures pertaining to
the annual oyster commerce of France is generally
abortive. No one knows exactly what these figures
are, but of course every man forms his own opinion.
An oyster merchant of Rochelle doing business with
the growers of the adjacent islands of Oleron and
Re will say £250,000 per annum, while a Bordeaux
shipper, with large ideas, will give figures repre-
senting four times that sum. It is unquestionable
that there is an immense oyster business done in
France. Paris alone requires at present a daily
supply that in the course of the season is said to
amount to 100,000,000, and the large provincial
towns all consume in proportion. Countless num-
bers are besides exported, cured, prepared, and
pickled. Official figures state that in 1862 the three
factors appointed by the Government for the sale of
oysters in the grand market disposed of 67,836,900,
being an increase of 121 millions on the preceding
year. We are constantly coming across paragraphs
in the provincial newspapers of France about the
oyster trade. Lately the Phare de la Manche told
us that Paris now required ten times as many
Oysters al in 1856, and that they were now double
the price ; further that 6,000 women get a living
during the oyster season in opening oysters. The
same paper also gave us the astonishing intelligence
that huitres de la Manche were the most esteemed in
Paris, that the green oysters of Marennes were not
now in demand, except f
the Ostend pittedor exportation,
and that
oystershad taken their place. It
is certain that Ostend furnishes to Paris about three
million oysters per annum ; there are official figures
to that effect. There has been also published a
cluster of reliable figures about the oyster grounds
of Arcachon, in which it is stated that the oyster
grounds of the basin, including the royal parks on
either side of the bank of La Ilillion, occupy space
to the extent of 1,200 acres. A stock of over two
oysters was gradually laid
millions of breeding
down in the royal grounds, and there yielded
an enormous amount of spat. A portion of the
two millions—viz., 500,000, laid down in 1863,
is said to have yielded young to the extent of seven
millions ! If this statement be correct as to a
fortieth part of the mother stock, what would the
total yield be ? It would in fact be too enormous
for figures to express it.
Everybody has heard about the immense fecun-
dity of the oyster, and to yield such supplies as are
indicated by the above figures the animal would
require to be very prolific. The writer has seen a
little branch taken from an artificial bed, which