LAKE FUSARO.
The accompanying engraving gives a general view of Lake Fusaro (the Avernus of the ancients), showing here and there the stakes surrounding the artificial banks, the single and double ranges of stakes on which the faggots are suspended, and at one extremity the labyrinths, in the face of which is a canal of from 2½ to 3 metres broad and 1½ metres deep joining the lake to the sea. A small lake, believed to be the ancient Cocytus, communicates with this canal. The pavilion in the lake is the ordinary residence of the persons in charge of the fishery.
OYSTER-PYRAMID.
OYSTER-FASCINES.
The mode of oyster-breeding at this place, then as now, was to erect artificial pyramids of stones in the water, surrounded by stakes of wood, in order to intercept the spawn, the oyster being laid down on the stones. I have shown these modes in the accompanying engravings. Faggots of branches were also used to collect the spawn, which, as I have already said, requires, within forty-eight hours of its emission, to secure a holding-on place or be lost for ever. The plan of the Fusaro oyster-breeders struck M. Coste as being eminently practical and suitable for imitation on the coasts of France: he had one of the stakes pulled up, and was gratified to find it covered with oysters of all ages and sizes. The Lake Fusaro system of cultivation was therefore, at the instigation of Professor Coste, strongly recommended for imitation by the French Government to the French people, as being the most suitable to follow, and experiments were at once entered upon with a view to prove whether it would be as practicable to cultivate oysters as easily among the agitated waves of the open sea as in the quiet waters of Fusaro. In order to settle this point, it was determined to renew the old oyster-beds in the Bay of St. Brieuc, and notwithstanding the fact that the water there is exceedingly deep and the winds very violent, immediate and almost miraculous success was the result. The fascines laid down soon became covered with seed, and branches were speedily exhibited at Paris, and other places, containing thousands of young oysters. The experiments in oyster-culture tried at St. Brieuc were commenced early in the spring of 1859, on part of a space of 3000 acres that was deemed suitable for the reception of spat. A quantity of breeding oysters, approaching to three millions, was laid down either on the old beds or on newly-constructed longitudinal banks; these were sown thick on a bottom composed chiefly of immense quantities of old shells—the “middens” of Cancale in fact, where the shell accumulation had become a nuisance—so that there was a more than ordinary good chance for the spat finding at once a proper holding-on place. Then again, over some of the new banks, fascines made of boughs tightly tied together were sunk and chained over the beds, so as to intercept such portions of the spawn as were likely, upon rising, to be carried away by the force of the tide. In less than six months the success of the operation in the Bay of St. Brieuc was assured; for, at the proper season, a great fall of spawn had occurred, and the bottom shells were covered with the spat, while the fascines were so thickly coated with young oysters that an estimate of 20,000 for each fascine was not thought an exaggeration.
In a piscicultural report for 1860, we obtain, in connection with the St. Brieuc experiments, an idea of the cost of oyster-breeding, which I translate for the benefit of people at home:—“The total expenses for forming a bank were 221 francs; and if the 300 fascines laid down upon it be multiplied by 20,000 (the number of oysters they contain), 6,000,000 will be obtained, which, if sold at twenty francs a thousand, will produce 120,000 francs. If, however, the number of oysters on a fascine were to be reckoned at only 10,000, the sum of 60,000 francs would be received, which, for an expenditure of only 221 francs, would give a larger profit than any other branch of industry.”
Twelve months, however, before the date of the experiments I have been describing at St. Brieuc, the artificial culture of oysters had successfully commenced on another part of the coast—namely, the Ile de Re off the shore of the lower Charente (near la Rochelle), in the Bay of Biscay, which may now be designated the capital of French oysterdom, having more parcs and claires than Marennes, Arcachon, Concarneau, Cancale, and all the rest of the coast put together, and which, before it became celebrated for its oyster-growing, was only known in common with other places in France for its successful culture of the vine. It is curious to note the rapid growth of the industry of oyster-culture on the Ile de Re. It was begun so recently as 1858, and there are now upwards of 4000 parks and claires upon its shores, and the people may be seen as busy in their fish-parks as the market-gardeners of Kent in their strawberry-beds. Oyster-farming on the Ile was inaugurated by a stone-mason having the curious name of Beef.