The mussels swarmed in the little bay; and Walton soon remarked that they attached themselves by preference to that part of the post a little above the mud, and that those so placed soon became fatter, as well as more agreeable to the taste, than those buried in the mud. He saw in this peculiarity the elements of a sort of mussel culture which might become a new branch of industry. "The practices he introduced," says M. Coste, "were so happily adapted to the requirements of the new industry, that, after six centuries, they are still the rules by which the rich patrimony he created for a numerous population is governed. He seems to have applied himself to the enterprise, conscious not only of the service he was rendering to his contemporaries, but desirous that their descendants should remember him, for in every instance he has given to the apparatus which he invented the form of his initial letter W. After due consideration, Walton began to carry out his design. He planted a long range of piles along the low marshy shore, each pair forming a letter V, the front of the letter being towards the sea, and each limb diverging at an angle of forty-five degrees. These posts were driven about a yard asunder; they were about twelve feet long, six feet being above water, and interlaced with branches wattled together, so as to form continuous hurdles, each about two hundred yards long, which are called _bouchots_. By the assistance of this apparatus, which intercepted spat which would otherwise have been swept away to sea by the tide, Walton formed a magnificent collection of mussels; but he did not abandon his isolated piles. These, being without fascines or branches, and always submerged, arrested the spat at the moment of emission." [Illustration: Fig. 159. Punt or Pirogue of the Marsh.] The advantages of this system of culture adopted by the Irish exile were so obvious that his neighbours along the shore were not slow to imitate his example. In a short time the whole bay was covered with similar bouchots. At the present time these lines of hurdles form a perfect forest in the little creek. About two hundred and thirty thousand piles support a hundred and twenty-five thousand fascines, which, according to M. Coste, "bend all the year under a harvest which a squadron of ships of the line would fail to float." There are about five hundred of these bouchots in the bay, each from two hundred to two hundred and fifty yards in length and six feet high. [Illustration: Fig. 160. Isolated piles covered with the spawn of mussels.]