Step of the birth of oyster farming in France

Threat of an oyster shortage

Gravure d'huîtres plates
On peut observer sur cette gravure de Victor Coste les diverses étapes du développement des huîtres plates. A noter qu'à cette époque seules celles-ci existent sur les côtes françaises.

Since the Romans where it was highly considered, the oyster did not lose its reputation. With the Renaissance, its fame has increased. The facility of its exploitation will very soon make of it a threatened product. And this can be easely understood because man exploits it in every possible way: dredger, rake, on foot ... The oysters collected on natural benches are simply and directly sold and sometimes stored in " saltwater basins " in order to manage the variations of the needs in oyster and also to refine the oysters.

In the XVIIth century, the benches are seen as inexhausible, as shows the ordinance of R.J. Valin in 1681. But after the second half of the XVIIth century, regulations accumulate : total prohibition of fishing, limitation of the means, or limitation in time. But if these regulations do prevent the extinction of the oysters, they don't allow the natural benches to be durably reconstituted. The situation will truly become alarming when, during the XIXth century, thanks to the railroad, the trade of oyster will be spectacularly improved. The oysters, in fashion at the time among the high society (oyster lunches), are becoming rare and shortage threatens some regions. It then becomes obvious that this type of natural benches exploitation cannot remain indefinitely.

Foreign inspiration

Les fagots collecteurs
Here are the Fusaro lake installations which inspired Coste for his own tries.

It is following an alarmist report from the agriculture and trade ministry that Napoleon III named V. Coste to the head of the research on oyster. For Coste, who already have carried out researches in pisciculture, the solution to the problem of oyster farming consisted in the controle, from end-to-end, of the breeding cycle of the oyster and more particularly its collecting. He thus left for Italy where remained an artificial oyster farming in the Fusaro lake. This voyage enabled him to see, in France and in Italy, the oyster and mussel breeding methods. At the Fusaro lake, Coste examined with interest the fagots that were used to collect the oyster seed. For Coste, these observations represent the first experimental approach in the collecting of the oyster larvae, and it also improves his biological knowleges concerning the reproduction of the oyster. All these observations will be meticulously reported and published in 1855 with the first edition of " Voyage of exploration of the french and italian coast ". An appendix will be added where Coste describes the various " suitable systems of collecting the oyster and the mussel larvae ".

Here we can see how Coste describes what we call today the collectors : " The young oysters, by leaving the valves of their mother, wander a little within the water, and seem to be seeking suitable conditions for their adherence and their later development (i.e. solid bodies), that is to say surfaces that are slightly rough and safe from mud. "

The first tests

Ferdinand De Bon

Head of the navy department of Saint-Servan, Ferdinand of Bon appears as a precursory after he tried, in 1853, to repopulate the Saint-Servan benches. His collecting method were different: he layed at 15cm from the ground a floor made of separate elements and which was intended to allow the fixing of the larvae. Coste visited his installations and congratulated him for the advance of this project in time. Here, we can see the sketches of De Bon's installations in the appendix about the collectors in the book of Coste.

Le plancher collecteur de naissain

It is probably this floor, described by Coste, which was imagined by F. De Bon to collect the seed oyster.

Victor Coste

In the following years, Victor Coste will imply a lot in the development of what will be later called oyster farming. For him, it is urgent to repopulate the natural benches which were usually destroyed by the dredgers. Successfully, he will convince the Emperor who will give him important means. In 1858, the experiment begins in the Saint Brieuc bay, where the oyster settlement was particularly damaged. Coste's method of repopulating this bay consist in defining new artificial farms (where there are no oysters) which he covers with empty shells. Hanging bundle of sticks (for the seed oyster) are addes to these bench skeletons. The oysters are imported from Cancale and Tréguier by two ships: the Ariel and the Antelope, and then are spreaded on the benches. The experiment is successful: six months later, impressive quantities of small oysters are present on the faggots.

The beginnings were however not so easy. Coste, who wanted to repopulate the whole of the French coasts, was stopped by the climate variations, and even by the plundering of his installations, when he extended his experiment to other areas.

Jean Michelet

This inventory of the pioneers of oyster farming in France wouldn't be complete if we don't mention the invention, in 1865, of Jean Michelet, a mason from Arcachon. Indeed, he suggests to collect the seed oyster with the help of a limed tile. This improvement made the collecting of oysters easier, and it was partly responsible of the development of the Arcachon oyster farming.

The develoment of an oyster farming industry

The essential was more or less done, and, gradually, due to the efforts of Coste and of many local fishermen, techniques were improved and requests for concessions multiplied. In 1860, we could count 2000 oyster farms on the Ré island, and 112 concessioary for 400 ha at Arcachon. Even if these Arcachon exploitations will " come together " (???), we will still find 287 oyster farms in 1866 and 4015 in 1887.

Le détrocage dans les établissements Baudrier et Tricart

Separation of the oyster shells in a " Baudrier and Tricart " manufacture, an old oyster farming manufacture of Marennes-Oléron.

On these bases, the development of the oyster farming was successful and it turned out to be a solid source of income for the coastal populations. The emerging industry was also stimulated by the arrival of the portugese oyster (around 1870), which first colonized the Arcachon bay, and then went up till the Vendée but stopped before Bretagne. This is how the oyster industry began. This evolution relates one of the first experience where men was obliged to change his farming methods in order to preserve the specie. We see in this example the transition between the looting of a natural ressource and the durable exploitation of it. All of these improvements made that the word " oyster farming " entered in the dictionary of Littré in 1877.

Birth of the oyster farming in France