MUSSELS OF CUMBEELAISTD mVEU AND TRIBUTARIES. 



11 



TJiird section, from Nashville to Dover, Tenn., 105 miles. — This por- 

 tion of the river has been more thoroughly worked by the clammers 

 than has any other. It contains the largest and most valuable mussel 

 beds of the entire river, and the location of all the beds, together with 

 their size and relative value, are well known. The proportion of 

 merchantable shells, moreover, has increased until there is no longer 

 any locality in this part of the river where the pinks and spikes pre- 

 ponderate. The Ohio River pigtoe still continues to be the most 

 common and valuable commercial shell, but the niggerhead becomes 

 a close second and from Clarksville to Dover outranks the pigtoe. 



So much does the commercial clamming increase and so great is the 

 influence of the ready local market for shells that pearling as a dis- 

 tinctive vocation practically disappears. Every clammer is on the 

 watch for such pearls as may be found in the shells which he cleans 

 for the market, but there is very little hunting for pearls with no other 

 object in view. This increase in the commercial clamming is due 

 ahnost entirely to the activity of the button-blank factory at Clarks- 

 ville, near the center of this third portion of the river, which furnishes 

 a convenient market for all the shells taken in the vicinity. 



The proprietor of this factory, Mr, M. K. Clark, is much interested 

 in everything that pertains to clamming, and with his assistance sev- 

 eral thousand glochidia of the yellow sand-shell were taken from ripe 

 female mussels and placed in tubs of water with small fish caught in 

 adjacent ponds. After the young mussels had fastened themselves 

 to the fish the latter were turned loose in the river. This was the 

 first time that mussels had ever been artificially planted in the 

 Cumberland. Mr. Clark also gave us most of the data for the follow- 

 ing table of mussels beds: 



