42 American Fisheries Society 



fastened with buttons, there will be a strong demand for 

 domestic shells. Consequently, it is our responsibility, 

 not only to prevent the extermination of mussels, but to 

 effect an abundant and widespread growth of them, so 

 that they may continue to furnish a product possessing 

 the unusual combination of excellent quality and low cost. 

 For an industry to endure there must be not only demand 

 for the product but also a supply of materials. We are 

 brought then to our second question. 



//. Is the supply of fresh-water mussels enduring? 



The mussels, needless to say, are living animals which 

 naturally grow and reproduce. Such resources are not 

 inevitably exhaustible like deposits of past ages which 

 are, practically speaking, fixed in amount and not subject 

 to growth or increment. They may, however, be exhaust- 

 ible like certain sorts of forest growth if the rate of re- 

 production cannot keep pace with the consumption in- 

 volved in any practical form of utilization. The mussel 

 industry does not exist by virtue of a "draft upon the ac- 

 cumulation of mussels of past years." Such an impres- 

 sion has been known to exist, but it is not held by any 

 who are conversant with the history of the mussel fishery. 



In the early times of the shell fishery — and that was 

 less than 25 years ago — the beds were exhausted with 

 great rapidity, and principally for two reasons. Few 

 mussel beds were then known and these were intensively 

 and one might almost say frenziedly worked; so that in 

 restricted localities a more intensive fishery marked the 

 stage of infancy than is known now that the industry as 

 a whole has developed to vastly larger proportions. Fur- 

 thermore, it was at first supposed that the shells of only 

 one or two species of mussels were adapted for commer- 

 cial use; consequently great quantities of the best shells 

 were gathered only to be thrown away, and shelling was 

 pursued with excessive waste. Under the pressure of 

 necessity, however, more and more of the variety of mus- 

 sel species came into use, and the shelling industry spread 

 from stream to stream and from state to state until it 



