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Part III— Tenth Annual Report 
generally, ten shillings for each ton of mature mussels landed and trucked 
at Port-Glasgow. The fishermen gather the mussels by means of rakes, 
i similar to those used at Montrose and the Eden, and they work from half 
ebb tide to half flood tide. 
The present arrangement, where there is competition between the 
merchants and between their fishermen, has an inevitable tendency to 
over-fishing, and to the taking of mussels which are not of sufficient bait 
size. The demand, too, for mussels also tends to accentuate this over- 
fishing, and to the despatch of mussels which ought to remain for at least 
a year longer on the beds. Free fishing also hinders anything of the nature 
of seeding, or of rotation of crop being attempted, for nobody will seed 
beds which any one can strip of its mussels. 
How, therefore, can cultivation be inaugurated for these valuable beds ? 
Free fishing is absolutely fatal to cultivation. The only other alternative 
is by the Fishery Board granting a several fishery order for the whole or 
part of them, and ensuring to the cultivator or cultivators the results of his 
or their operations. The grantee could then cultivate the seeds to advan- 
tage, and would also be in a position to pay a fair royalty for the privileges 
which he enjoyed should this course be found desirable and competent. 
The differences between the present system of no-culture and cultivation 
would be that the grantee would find it to his own advantage to assist 
nature, and transfer the seed from the lower reaches of his ground, where 
it settles in more abundance, to the better growing ground, where the 
water is not so salt. At present the banks are allowed to seed themselves, 
and the mussels consequently take a longer time to cover the bared banks. 
The time which the more intelligent fishermen declare that it takes the 
Clyde mussels to reach maturity is four to six years. But by cultivation 
this time would be considerably shortened by the lifting and re-sowing of 
the mussel seed. It is quite as necessary to thin mussel seed as it is to 
thin turnips, or to thin the trees of a young plantation ; and it is as absurd 
to sow turnip seed and look for a matured root crop without further work, as 
to expect well filled, large, and mature mussels from seed that remains in situ. 
The first necessary operation, therefore, for the mussel cultivator of the 
Clyde beds is, after the ground has been stripped of the mature forms, 
and the banks have attained the proper decrease in height, to bring a 
supply of seed mussels of at least half-an-inch in length, and sow them on 
this ground. This may be called the preliminary operation in all success- 
ful mussel culture. 
The condition of the other mussel banks, and the supply of seed will 
determine the succeeding steps to be taken. Where the supply of seed 
within a reasonable distance of the beds is ample, the difficulty may be to 
find sufficient ground to receive the young mussels. In such a case it is 
better to allow the seed to remain on the seeding beds till the mussels 
have attained a larger size than the minimum size, when they may be 
shifted with impunity. By permitting the half-inch mussels to remain in 
situ, they soon grow so as to attain the size of an inch. These latter bear 
transport better than the smaller size, and on the same bank they grow 
quite as well, and sometimes even better than the smaller forms. Where 
the supply of seed is deficient, operations become more expensive, and the 
beds are not so remunerative. In the Clyde, however, there is a plentiful 
supply of seed, and the same difficulties have not to be contended with as 
at Montrose. 
In all mussel areas some banks are better growing than others. In the 
Clyde the best growing ground is at Ardmore deep, and on the flats, 
where the ground seeds itself, and the mussels are lifted when four years 
old If, in this place, the mussels were thinned, there is no reason why 
