854 REPORT OF COMMISSIQNER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [30] 
the business is most important, and the greater portion of the crop is 
sold. 
When it is desirable to: supply the neighboring villages or cities not 
far distant, the fishermen draw their canoes to the shore filled with 
mussels. The women then take charge of them, transport them first 
into caves dug in the foot of the cliff, where they keep their implements 
and building materials. They first wash them and then arrange 
them in baskets and hampers, which are either loaded on horses or in 
carts, and then as soon as night sets in, no matter what the state of 
the weather, they start with their cargoes towards the point of destina- 
tion, arriving sufficiently early to be present at the opening of the 
market. Thus they travel to Rochelle, to Rochefort, Surgeres, Saint- 
Jean-VAngély, Angouléme, Niort, Poitiers, Tours, Mauzé, Angers, 
Saumur, &e. About 140 horses and 90 carts, making altogether to these 
different cities more than 33,000 trips, are employed annually in this 
service. 
If, on the contrary, they wish to export to greater distances, and on 
a larger scale, 40 or 50 barks coming from Bordeaux, the isles of Ré and 
Oléron, and Sables-d’Olonne, and making altogether 750 voyages annu- 
ally, distribute the crop in countries which the horses and earts do not 
reach. 
A bouchot, well stocked, furnishes generally, according to the length 
of its wings, from 400 to 500 loads of mussels, that is to say, about one 
load per meter. The load is 150 kilograms, and sells for 5 francs. One 
houchot, therefore, produces a crop weighing from 60,000 to 75,000 kilo- 
grams, and valued at 2,000 to 2,500 franes; from which it follows that 
the crop of all the bouchots united would weigh about 30,000,000 to 
37,000,000 kilograms, which at the figures already given would be worth 
about 1,000,000 to 1,200,000 frances. These figures and the abundant 
crops from which they result, give an idea of the food supplies and 
of the great benefits that may be derived from a similar industry, 
if, instead of being confined to only one portion of the Bay of Aiguillon, 
it should be extended to the whole of it, and carried from the locality 
where it originated to all the coasts and salt-water lakes where it could 
be successfully carried on. In the mean time the prosperity which it se- 
cured in the three communes of which it has become the patrimony will 
remain as an end worthy of effort; for, thanks to the precious invention 
of Walton, wealth has succeeded to poverty, and since the industry 
has been developed here no healthy man is poor. Those whose infirm- 
ities condemn them to idleness are cared for in a most generous and 
delicate manner by the others. 
“Twice a week,” says M. @Orbigny, the elder, “the housekeepers of 
each family carry their bread to be baked at the baker’s; the poor people 
or their agents, often persons in easy circumstances, who take upon them- 
selves the honorable mission when the unfortunate themselves are not 
able to go to the place, present themselves there with a basket. Each 
