Who believed Uncle Jack when he told us in our youth of oysters growing on trees, and oysters so large that they required to be carved like a round of beef--of oysters on the Coromandel coast as large as soup-plates? Nevertheless Uncle Jack's stories were true: there are oysters which require carving, and oysters have been plucked off trees. In some parts of America they grow very large. Virginia possesses nearly two million acres of oyster-beds. The sea-board of Georgia is famed for its immense supplies; the whole coast of Long Island, extending to a hundred and fifteen miles, is occupied with them, and all over the States evidence is to be seen of the estimate in which the favoured bivalve is held by the American people. Natural oyster-beds are found in bays, estuaries, and other sheltered sinuosities of the coast, with shelving and not too rocky bottoms, such places being, according to the natural law of production, favourable for the increase of the colony. Such banks abound in every sea. In France the oyster-beds of Rochelle, of Rochefort, the Isles of Ré and Oleron, the Bay of St. Brieuc, of Cancale, and Granville, are famous for the quality of their produce. On the Danish coast there are from forty to fifty oyster-banks, situated on the west coast of Schleswig; the best bed lying between the small isles of Sylt, Amron, Fohr, Pelworm, and Nordstrand. At the point of Jutland, and opposite Shagen, beds less productive are found. The great oyster-beds of England extend from Gravesend, in the estuary of the Thames and Medway, along the Kentish coast on the one hand, and the estuary of the Colne and other rivers on the Essex coast. The Frith of Forth is also famous for its oyster-beds, extending from Preston Pans far up the estuary of the river; but, curiously enough, all these great banks, without exception, have been impoverished, and all but exhausted, by improvident dredging, in spite of the "close season" which has always existed.[10] * * * * *