have inspected these farms for the cultivation of oysters speak with great hopefulness about the success of the experiment. Mr. Ashworth, so well known for his success as a salmon fisher and breeder in Ireland, tells me that oyster-farming on the shores of the French coast is one of the greatest industrial facts of the present age, and thinks that oyster-farming will in the end be even more profitable than salmon-breeding. There is only one drawback connected with these and all other sea-farms in France: the farmers, we regret to say, are only “tenants at will,”[14] and liable at any moment to be ejected; but notwithstanding this disadvantage the work of oyster-culture still goes bravely forward, and it is calculated, in spite of the bad spatting of the last three years, that there is a stock of oysters in the beds on the Ile de Re—accumulated in only six years—of the value of upwards of £100,000. [Illustration: OYSTER-PARKS.] Much hard work had no doubt to be endured before such a scene of industry could be thoroughly organised. When the great success of Beef’s experiments had been proclaimed in the neighbourhood, a little army of about a thousand labourers came down from the interior of the country and took possession, along with the native fishermen, of the shores, portions of which were conceded to them by the French Government at a nominal rent of about a franc a week, for the purpose of being cultivated as oyster parks and claires. The most arduous duty of these men consisted in clearing off the mud, which lay on the shore in large quantities, and which is fatal to the oyster in its early stages; but this had to be done before the shores could be turned to the purpose for which they were wished. After this preliminary business had been accomplished, the rocks had to be blasted in order to find stones for the construction of the park-walls; then these had to be built, and the ground had also to be paved in a rough and ready kind of way; foot-roads had also to be arranged for the convenience of the farmers, and carriage-ways had likewise to be made to admit of the progress of vehicles through the different farms. Ditches had to be contrived to carry off the mud; the parks had to be stocked with breeding oysters, and to be kept carefully free from the various kinds of sea animals that prey upon the oyster; and many other daily duties had to be performed that demanded the minute attention of the owners. But all obstacles were in time overcome, and some of the breeders have been so very successful of late years as to be offered a sum of £100 for the brood attached to twelve of their rows of stones, the cost of laying these down being about two hundred francs! To construct an oyster-bed thirty yards square costs about £12 of English money, and it has been calculated that the return from some of the beds has been as high as 1000 per cent! The whole industry of the Ile is wonderful