We glean from these proceedings of the French pisciculturists the most valuable lessons for the improvement and conduct of our British oyster-parks. If, as seems to be pretty certain, each matured oyster yields about two millions of young per annum, and if the greater proportion of these can be saved by being afforded a permanent resting-place, it is clear that, by laying down a few thousand breeders, we may, in the course of a year or two, have, at any place we wish, a large and reproductive oyster-farm. With reference to the question of growth, Coste tells us that stakes which had been fixed for a period of thirty months in the lake of Fusaro were quite loaded with oysters when they came to be removed. These were found to embrace a growth of three seasons. Those of the first year’s spawning were ready for the market; the second year’s brood were a good deal smaller; whilst the remainder were not larger than a lentil. To attain miraculous crops similar to those once achieved in the Bay of St. Brieuc, or at the Ile de Re, little more is required than to lay down the spawn in a nice rocky bay, or in a place paved for the purpose, and having as little mud about it as possible. A place that had a good stream of water flowing into it is the most desirable, so that the flock might procure food of a varied and nutritious kind. A couple of hundred stakes driven into the soft places of the shore, between high and low water mark, and these well supplied with branches held together by galvanised iron wire (common rope would soon become rotten), would, in conjunction with the rocky ground, afford capital holding-on places, so that any quantity of spawn might, in time, be developed into fine “natives,” or “whiskered pandores.” There are hundreds of places on the English and Irish coasts where such farms could be advantageously laid down. As showing the productiveness of some of the French oyster-beds, it may be stated that 350,000 oysters were obtained in the space of an hour from the Plessix bed, which is half a mile from the port of Auray; and, within a month or two after the opening of those beds, upwards of twenty millions were brought into port, giving employment to 1200 fishermen. The gentlemen from Jersey who explored the French oyster-beds saw in the bay of Arcachon, at Testé, many beds which were highly productive. One man had laid down 500,000 oysters, and these he estimated had increased in three years to seven millions! I may just be allowed to give here one other illustration of oyster-growth; the figures appertain to the Ile de Re: “The inspectors recently counted 600 full-grown oysters to the square metre, and seeing that 630,000 square metres are now under cultivation, it follows that the oysters on this tract of desert mud are worth from six to eight millions of francs, the total crop being (at the time spoken of) 378,000,000 of oysters!”