The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-02-10
Mussels.

In England the mussel is much and
most undeservedly despised; but across
the Channel they know how to value it.
There are nearly 5000 bouchots or mus
sel-reserves on the coasts of France, and
more than $500 persons get living from
them. The centre of this industry is to
be found on the west coast, near La Ro-
chelle, where the inhabitants of the
village of Marsilly, Villedoux, Esnandes
and Charron are almost wholly occupied
in rearing mussels. M. d'Orbigny, in
his account of this business, says that it
originated thus: In 1885 an Irish bark
was wrecked off Esnandes, and the skip
per, man named Walton, alone was
saved. He remained in the country, and
proved to be an ingenious turn of mind.
He was the first inventor of those special
nets, called dtt0uretS, which are en-
ployed for taking the tiocks of sea-birds
whose habit it is of dark evenings to skim
the sea inshore in the Bay of Biscay. To
set his nets he made sort of raft, To-
cally called an aeon, which is from seven
to ten feet long and two feet wide. A
man kneels on it with one knee while he
propels and steers it with the other
leg, which, well shod in a high
waterproof boot, hangs in the water.
While attending in this manner to his
nets Walton observed, first, that the
stakes to which he attached them became
covered with mussel-spawn, and further,
that the mussels thus grown were larger
and better than those found in the shore
mud. He then planned the bouchot-a
| word which comes from boatche, mouth,
apparently; but the other two words.
aLLoatret and aeon, are not yet to be found
in any dictionary-even of patois. A
| bouchot is a great triangular en-
closure made of posts and wattles,
the base of which is formed by the
coast, while the apex runs out seward
for as much as 1,100 yards. At this
apex is a narrow opening, which can be
closed with nets or otherwise to prevent
large fish from escaping at the ebb of
the tide. The boNchOt is thus weir for
catching fish as well as a mussel re-
serve. Walton's discovery rapidly got
abroad; he had taken out no patent, the
boucbots soon multiplied, and the popu-
lation who work them have come to be
called bouchote~rs. 1t is a curious in
stance of the great effects of small causes
that the coasting navigatorS of the west
have from time to time made vigorous
representations of the dangers of the
bouchots, which are in some places seven
rows deep and extend as far as six miles
out to sea, taking up much good an
chorage-ground of refuge on difficult
coast.
The mussel-spat, says Quatrefages,
appears in the spring, and the young
reach the size of lentils about the end
of May. They then grow more rapidly,
and in July are as big as the kidney
bean. They are then fit for the "trans-
planting" which is effected by remov-
ing them from those stakes which are
furthest out in the sea, putting them in
to bags made out of old nets, and fix
ing these bags on wattles nearer to the
shore. The young mussels spread them
selves all round the bags, clinging on to
the wattles by those tilaments which
naturalists have called byssus. Accord
ing as they grow. and crowd each other
too much, thew are thinned out and ere
planted on other posts still nearer and
nearer to the land, until finally those
which have reached their full size and
are marketable are ''planted" quite al
the margin of the water, where the daily
harvest takes place. The enormous
quantities of these mussels, freshly
gathered, which are every day des
patched into the interior may be judged
} from the official returns, which give the
annual yield of this fishery on all the
French coasts at 100000 bushels
Pail Mall Gazette.