52 THE UNAPPRECIATED PISHER FOLK. 
project a mussel-farm, and grow these mollusks in quantities, 
sufficient not only to bait their hooks but to sell to the 
public as well. In this they can follow the fashion of the 
French, who have a fine mussel-farm in the Bay of Aiguillon, 
near La Rochelle, where large quantities of mussels are 
annually grown ona simple plan, which might very easily 
be copied by the Scottish fishermen, and so save them a 
world of labour, anxiety, and expense. In a “ Report on the 
Fisheries of Norfolk,” the late Mr. Buckland, in 1875, gave 
us some particulars of the value of a mussel-bed in the 
statistics which he published of the Mussel Fisheries of 
Lynn, these yield from three to four thousand tons in good 
years, the average price per ton being a pound. There isa 
very productive natural mussel-bed at Montrose in Scotland 
which yields a large supply of bait. 
The Messrs. Johnston, a local and enterprising firm, the 
late Mr. Buckland told us in one of his reports, have wisely 
instituted Mussel culture there, and there is a great demand 
from Peterhead to Fraserburgh for Montrose Mussels, the 
fishermen of these places taking from 100 to 200 baskets, 
which they lay down on the rocks as store bait. The mode 
of measuring these mollusks is by heaping them in a con- 
ical form in a herring basket, twenty full baskets making a 
ton. The fishery officer at Eyemouth (Scotland) reported, 
in 18709, “the supply of mussels for bait is falling off greatly, 
and on several occasions lately our fishermen have been 
laid ashore for want of bait, and the want is becoming 
greater every day.” It will afford an excellent idea of the 
labour involved in baiting, when it is stated that, in the course 
of one week, the Eyemouth and Burnmouth boats used for 
baiting their long lines 61 tons of mussels. That quantity 
of bait, it may be chronicled here, yielded these fishermen 
cod and whiting to the value of £2,500, which shows 
