6 PROTECTION OF FRESH-WATER MUSSELS. 



to support measures that will insure permanent life and prosperity 

 to the industr3^ Here is a business that yields a relatively fixed re- 

 turn in comparison with agricultural industries, which are so gen- 

 erally affected, favorably or unfavorably, by the vicissitudes of 

 weather conditions. 



It is of much more immediate concern to the community at large 

 than it is to the purchasers of shells or to the shellers themselves 

 that the resources of a particular region should be conserved. It is 

 a comparatively simple matter for the manufacturer to strip his 

 plant and to remove his machinery to another locality with unde- 

 pleted resources; it is an easy thing for the sheller, with his scant 

 equipment in a house boat, to float down the river, looking to find 

 another temporary home where his labors may be more profitable. 

 It is the interest of the communit}'^ that is threatened. The loss of 

 a substantial industry affects the profits and the welfare of innumer- 

 able persons who may have Imown little of their indirect interest in 

 a business in Avhich they did not immediately participate. The com- 

 munities most immediately affected are those of the river towns 

 which, as a general rule, are too limited in their sources of fixed 

 income. 



From the standpoint of community economy, an unfortunate fea- 

 ture of the mussel fishery, as it has been pursued up to this time, has 

 been its nomadic character. The policy everywhere has been to clean 

 up the beds of a locality, or of a stream as a whole, and then to move 

 to new regions. Temporary cutting plants, or " factories," have fre- 

 quently been established in the vicinity of active shelling, to move 

 subsequently as the local fishery passed away. Only the larger and 

 more firmh'- established branch plants of the principal factories have 

 maintained a fixed location. 



It will be brought out later in this report that it does not appear 

 possible to insure the best condition of the mussel beds, except by 

 some plan of rotation ; but it would be desirable and favorable to the 

 interest of all for the mussel fishery to be a permanent and depend- 

 able feature of the industrial life of the broader communities, if not 

 of particular restricted localities. 



The perpetuation of the mussel resources maj^ well receive the 

 best consideration of every State concerned and of the National 

 Government as well. It affects the welfare of thousands of shellers, 

 of hundreds of river towns over the broad Mississippi-lSIissouri 

 Basin, of manufacturers and laborers, east and west, and, it might 

 be said, of every user of pearl buttons, which comprises practically 

 the entire population of the countr3\ 



The Government and the States can accomplish the desired object 

 by two principal means — artificial propagation and legislative pro- 

 tection. It is the province of the present paper to deal primarily 



