SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 205 



wasteful one, perhaps did more good than harm. It 

 helped to secure a better quality of mussel than could 

 possibly be derived from an over-populated bed. The 

 clearing away of large quantities of small mussels gave 

 those that were left more room to spread over the shears, 

 increased growing space and a better chance to obtain an 

 efficient food supply. The result eventually, as we find 

 now, would be a larger mussel, and a well-filled shell, 

 instead of a stunted one with very little inside it. We 

 look upon the removal of the smaller mussels in days 

 gone by, as a crude attempt to improve the condition 

 of the shears, and a forerunner of transplanting now 

 conducted, with the authority and assistance of the Sea 

 Fisheries Committee. In former days all the mussels 

 removed for manure were utterly lost, but the present 

 system involves no waste of any kind. The mussels are 

 simply removed from an over-populated or starved bed to 

 a fresh area where there is plenty of growing room and 

 food. 



In the pre-railway days the large mussels were 

 hawked about the neighbouring villages and sent inland 

 in great quantities. On the completion of the railway, 

 then known as the Little North Western, to Morecambe, 

 in 1847, a better and more rapid method for distributing 

 these shellfish was opened to the fishermen which 'was 

 quickly taken advantage of. The improved facilities 

 for conveying the mussels to the large towns of the 

 county gave rise to an increase of the fishing population, 

 and was one of the causes that led up to the great trial 

 in 1874 between the fishermen and the lords of the manor. 



The original grant of the fishery at Heysham, which 

 is thought by some people to have been given in the tenth 

 century, included all the area from the middle of the 

 Kent flowing into Morecambe Bay, to the middle of the 



