by oyster culture will, within a short period, destroy the employment of tens of thousands, and the cheap and favourite food of tens of millions.”  “Something,” the professor proceeds to say, “may be effected by laws which allow each oyster bed to rest for a period of years after each season of fishing upon it.  It is the general belief, however, that shell-fish beds must be cultivated as carefully as garden beds, and that this can only be done by leasing them to individuals.  It is probable that the present unregulated methods will prevail until the dredging of the natural beds ceases to be remunerative, and that the oyster industry will then be transferred from the improvident fisherman to the care-taking oyster-culturists.”  We are thus led to the inevitable conclusion that if our Australian oyster fisheries are to be re-created, it will be necessary to follow in the same lines.  With that object in view, therefore, it will be needful to devise suitable legislative enactments to protect our oyster fisheries and to foster ostreiculture at the same time.  We must benefit, in short, by the experience derived from other parts of the world where ostreiculture has been carried to a state of absolute perfection.

THE FOOD VALUE OF THE OYSTER.

In the first place I shall begin by affirming that it would be a difficult matter indeed to say too much in favour of the oyster.  It is as highly appreciated at the present day as it was by the Romans hundreds of years ago, and it is certain that in centuries to come it will be found occupying a similar unrivalled position.  At the same time, it must not be forgotten that it is not every person who cares for the oyster, showing that there are various forms of affliction; and we find, accordingly, that there is no half-heartedness about the like or dislike for the oyster—­it is either held in the loftiest admiration, or looked upon almost with repugnance.  It is both food for the sick-room and food for the strong man.  It is one of the most valuable forms of nourishment for the growing child, and it gives strength to those of declining years.  It is specially appropriate for the brain worker, and yet it is deservedly in great repute with the muscle user—­whether athlete or artisan.  It is the opening ceremony at our feasts, while it reigns supreme at supper.  In short, there is everything to be said for it, while not a single word can be urged against it.

But if it is thus so highly appreciated in health, it is in disease that it is at its best; for here it occupies a place which nothing else can fill.  Indeed, after many cases of acute or serious illness, the oyster is one of the first things which the patient looks for.  In many chronic disorders, too, it is absolutely without a rival.  Thus, in anaemia, where the blood is so poor, it restores the strength; in bronchitis and other chest diseases it helps to relieve the loaded tubes of phlegm; in consumption