290 THE FIRST " MUSSEL-FARM." 



his net which were a little above the mud. Further, he 

 noted that these grew fatter, and were better flavoured, 

 than their mud-embedded congeners. On this hint he 

 acted. He began a system of mussel -culture, and teach- 

 ing it to the fishermen of Aiguillon, he founded a new 

 and profitable industry. So well-adapted was that system 

 to its object, that it has flourished down to the present 

 time with scarcely any modification. 



M. Coste, the great French authority on this subject, 

 very justly remarks that Walton, in developing his idea, 

 seems to have been conscious of the service he was 

 rendering to his contemporaries, and desirous that he 

 should be remembered by posterity, for in every instance 

 he gave to the apparatus he invented the form of the 

 initial letter of his name (Y for Yalton). Thus : he 

 began by planting a long range of piles along the low 

 marshy shore, each pair forming the letter Y, of which 

 the apex was towards the sea, while the two limbs 

 diverged at an angle of 45. The posts were kept nearly 

 a yard apart ; each measuring about twelve feet in length 

 that is, six feet above and six feet below the water- 

 surface and all were bound together with hurdles of 

 intertwisted branches. The two rows of hurdles formed 

 what is now called the bouchot. To the unaccustomed 

 eye the appearance is that of a number of fences, or 

 basket-work palisades, arranged in the form of acute 

 triangles. 



The bouchot is now-a-days constructed in exactly the 

 same manner ; but there are so many planted in the little 

 creek that it looks as if all the sheep-farms of the country 

 had been deprived of their hurdles ! We believe they 

 count up to 500 ; that each is from 200 to 250 yards 



