The cultivation of the common mussel (_Mytilus edulis_ L.) is not practised in this country, although it is used as food in the natural state of growth all round our coasts. The French appear to be the only nation who go in for extensive mussel farming. The principal of these establishments is at a little town called Esnaudes, not far from La Rochelle, and within sight of the Ile de Ré and its celebrated oyster parks. The secret of the cultivation consists in the employment of ‘bouchots,’ or tall hurdles, which are planted in the mud of the fore-shore, and upon which the mussel (_la moule_, as the French call it) grows. The method is said[231] to have been invented as long ago as 1235 by a shipwrecked Irishman named Walton. He used to hang a purse net to stakes, in the hope of capturing sea birds. He found, however, that the mussels which attached themselves to his stakes were a much more easily attainable source of food, and he accordingly multiplied his stakes, out of which the present ‘_bouchot_’ system has developed. The shore is simply a stretch of liquid mud, and the bouchots are arranged in shape like a single or double V, with the opening looking towards the sea. The fishermen, in visiting the bouchots, glide about over the mud in _piroques_ or light, flat-bottomed boats, propelling them by shoving the mud with their feet. Each bouchot is now about 450 yards long, standing 6 feet out of the mud, making a strong wall of solid basket-work, and as there are altogether at least 500 bouchots, the total mussel-bearing length of wall is nearly 130 miles. The mussel-spat affixes itself naturally to the bouchots nearest the sea, in January and February. Towards May the planting begins. The young mussels are scraped off these outermost bouchots, and placed in small bags made of old canvas or netting, each bag holding a good handful of the mussels. The bags are then fastened to some of the inner bouchots, and the mussels soon attach themselves by their byssus, the bag rotting and falling away. They hang in clusters, increasing rapidly in size, and at the proper time are transplanted to bouchots farther and farther up the tide level, the object being to bring the matured animal as near as possible to the land when it is time for it to be gathered. This process, which aims at keeping the mussel out of the mud, while at the same time giving it all the nutrition that comes from such a habitat, extends over about a year in the case of each individual. Quality, rather than quantity, is the aim of the Esnaudes boucholiers. The element of quantity, however, seems to come in when we are told that each yard of the bouchots is calculated to yield a cartload of mussels, value 6 francs, and that the whole annual revenue is at least £52,000.