[29] OYSTER AND MUSSEL INDUSTRIES. 853 
empty fascines in the middle bouchots, which are uncovered at low water 
during all tides. Here the same operation of placing the mussels in 
bags, which has already been mentioned, is repeated, before assigning 
them to anew dwelling place, where they may continue to grow and 
expand without hindrance. They are not, however, so carefully 
wrapped as when younger and taken from the first series, because their 
size is now such that they can be put in position more easily and securely 
without the help of this fastening. 
Thus the work of distribution goes on as long as there remain on the 
solitary stakes of the deep water bouchots any young which can be 
transferred to the wicker-work, taking advantage at all seasons, at all 
hours of the day and night, of the low tides, the only times when they 
are able to prosecute this laborious culture. If the scaffoldings, upon 
which they have so carefully placed their crop, give way or break, they 
repair the damages, replace the stakes which can no longer be used, 
change the position of the mussels that are not lying properly, and take 
precautions for the preservation of the whole establishment. 
Ordinarily, after ten months’ or a year’s residence upon these artificial 
beds, the mussels become marketable. Then, before offering them to 
the consumer, and to make room on the intermediate palisades, these 
colonies are subjected to a third and last transplanting. Those which 
have attained the desired size pass accordingly into the bouchots of the 
inner series, which are more accessible from the shore, as a sort of depot 
where they are more easily handled. They live here, though left dry 
twice a day by the sea, and, thanks to this continuous changing, there 
is no fear that the crop will suffer or the culture be interrupted. 
The mussels thus raised, although developed side by side on the 
same wicker-work, have not all the same qualities. Those which 
occupy the higher rows are better than those in the middle rows, and 
so the latter are preferred to those in the lower rows, which, being 
nearer the mud, are defiled by it whenever it is disturbed by the action 
of the waves. Only enough of it arises, on the contrary, into the upper 
series to furnish the mussels with the nutritious molecules, the infu- 
soria which abound in this diluted mud, and this is really the cause of 
the difference.. However, notwithstanding this difference, the poorest 
of the cultivated mussels are sufficiently improved by the care bestowed 
upon them to be far preferable to the best mussels grown in the sea. 
This mollusk, on account of its abundance and cheapness, has become 
the daily food of the indigent classes, and is sold at all seasons of the 
year. But there is one period during which its flesh is more tender, 
more savory, and fatter than at any other season. This period begins 
in July and extends into January. From the close of February to 
the end of April the mussels are milky (laiteuwses). They lose, like the 
oyster during the spawning season and during the period of incubation, 
the qualities which they previously possessed. Poor and tough, they 
are at such times less sought after. From July to January, therefore, 
