Some twenty years ago the oyster-beds of France had become totally exhausted under the open system of dredging; and circumstances having brought the protective system pursued at Fusaro under the notice of M. Coste, a learned academician, to whom France is indebted for the restoration of the bivalve, M. Coste reported to the Emperor in 1858 that at Rochelle, Marennes, Rochefort, at the Isles of Ré and Oleron, where there had formerly been twenty-three oyster-beds, there were now only five, and these in danger of being destroyed by the increase of mussels; that at the Bay of St. Brieuc, so naturally suited for oyster culture, the beds were reduced to three; that even on the classic oyster grounds of Cancale and Granville, it was only by the most careful administration that decay was prevented, while the increasing numbers of consumers threatened altogether to destroy an industry essentially necessary for the support of a maritime population. The impulse given by this report has been productive of the most satisfactory results in France. All along the coast the maritime populations are actively engaged in oyster culture. Oyster parks, in imitation of those at Fusaro, have sprung up. In his appeal to the Emperor, M. Coste suggested that the State, through the Administration of Marine, and by means of the vessels at its command, should take steps for sowing the whole French coast in such a manner as to re-establish the oyster-banks now in ruins, extend those which were prosperous, and create others anew wherever the nature of the bottom would permit. The first serious attempt to carry out the views of the distinguished academician was made in the Bay of St. Brieuc. In the month of April in the same year in which his report was received, operations commenced by planting three millions of mother-oysters which had been dredged in the common ground; brood from the oyster grounds of Cancale and Tréquiers were distributed in ten longitudinal lines on tiles, fragments of pottery, and valves of shells. At the end of eight months the progress of the beds was tested, and the dredge in a few minutes brought up two thousand oysters fit for the table, while two fascines drawn up at random contained nearly twenty thousand, from one to two inches in diameter. Two of these fascines exposed to public view at Béni and Patrieux excited the astonishment of the maritime population. This result encouraged M. Coste to pursue his experiments upon a greater scale, and he now proposed to bring the whole littoral under a regulated system of oyster culture. In the roads of Toulon and in Lake Thau, which touches this port, the same system was put in force by the Administration of Marine as had already been done in the Bay of Arcachon and in the Isle of Ré. In these localities oyster culture assumed gigantic proportions. Associations were formed for the purpose of prosecuting them and forming oyster-parks.