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Part III. — Ninth Annual Report 
ence, indications of what the answer will be are not awanting. That the 
mussels on the wattles have outstripped in growth the mussels on the bed 
alongside would be a rash conclusion in no way justified by the conditions 
presently seen, and, conversely, the bed mussels cannot be said to have 
grown much more than those on the wattles. In another year whatever 
difference there is in the rate of growth will be better seen by an observer. 
One thing, however, is certain, and that is that the mussels on the St 
Andrews bouchot have not grown so rapidly as do the mussels on the 
bouchots at the Bay of Aiguillon, so, in one aspect at least, the conditions 
of French myticulture do not apply to the same system of myticulture 
at St Andrews. But it is alleged that the quality or flavour of the 
boucliot-grown nmssel in Scotland is superior to that of the bed-grown 
mussels. This is a more difficult point to settle, as so much depends on 
the quality of the sense of taste of the observer. That excellent mussels 
in respect of flavour and quality are grown on bouch6ts is known to all 
who have tasted the French grown bouchot mussels ; that excellent 
mussels are produced on some of our Scottish beds is equally the truth. 
Not every mussel, whether grown on bouchots or on beds, possesses the 
delicacy of flavour which the epicure desires ; and I have found bed 
mussels, grown alongside of the bouchot at St Andrews, which were equal 
in quality and flavour to those grown on the bouchot. This question of 
quality and flavour I prefer to leave in an undecided position for the 
present at least. 
As to the relative numbers of mussels present on the bouchot in 1890 
and 1891, numerically 1891 far outstrips 1890 ; but we must distinguish 
between mussels of seed size, which would be on the BoucJiots d'aval, and 
mussels above, say, f or 1 inch, which would be present on the wattled 
bouchots. The increase in numbers in 1891 on the bouchot is due to the 
accession and fixing of embryo forms of about \ inch of the previous 
season. The number of large mussels on the wattles, which were placed 
there in 1890, is to-day less than at that date. This is to be attributed 
to the number which was stripped ofl" the bouchot during the gales of 
winter, as has been already noticed. 
We have thus now only to deal with the bouchot as a seed collector. 
There is a slight coating of mussels and barnacles on the unwattled posts, 
but the coating of mussels is so small that even as a seed collector, put in 
a fit condition to receive mussel spat, the bouchot, as placed on the banks 
of the Eden, so far as the last spatting season is concerned, can only be 
described as a failure. Before the bouchot as a seed collector can be 
described as a success, the posts must be covered by at least one layer 
of seed mussels, and this is very far from being the case. In the Bay of 
Aiguillon each post of the Bouchot d'aval is clothed with thousands of 
times more seed than is a similar post at the Eden. 
The results, therefore, from this bouchot can in no way be compared, 
as regards quantity produced, with the results obtained by the bouchots 
at the Bay of Aiguillon. All the seed obtainable from all the unwattled 
posts would not stock a square yard of the wattled posts, even though the 
mussels were not placed on the wattling more than one quarter as thick 
as the French boucheleurs place the mussel seed on their wattled posts at 
Aiguillon. 
Comparative Costs of French and Scottish Bouch6ts. 
What has already been stated as to the year's results of the bouch6t 
experiment at St Andrews, would make any prospective mussel cultivator 
hesitate before engaging in mussel culture by means of bouchdts rather 
