Extension of territory could not be continued indefinitely. While up to the present time the industry has not failed to obtain shells in quantity sufficient for the market demands, it has become perfectly clear that the perpetuation of the industry as one producing a staple product that is both good and within reach of all people depends upon successful propagation and effective protection. The supply is now maintained by regularly invading new territory (and it is scarcely possible to go farther in this direction), by seeking out the smaller tributaries of the mussel streams, which could not formerly have been worked with profit, and in some measure by the devising of methods that are more effective in capture of mussels. Notwithstanding these developments, all of which indeed conduce to more exhaustive fishery, an increasing proportion of very small shells is being taken, the bottoms are being more thoroughly cleaned, and the price of shell has advanced to a relatively high figure. A high price for shell has, of course, its advantages. It is good for the fishermen, provided they can find the shells, and it stimulates the manufacturers to eliminate waste and to use the most economical methods. On the other hand, if unbalanced by protective restrictions, a continued rise in price is of disastrous consequence. It impoverishes the beds by driving the fishermen to the most exhaustive manner of fishing; even the very smallest shells that can be captured, which should never be removed from the beds, are taken and marketed, and this, unfortunately, is the actual case at the present time. (See pl. I.) Ultimately the higher price of shell becomes an element in the price of the finished product and is paid by the public at large without corresponding advantage to a single person connected with the industry. Let it be repeated that a high price to the fishermen is desirable, but in the present condition they reap no benefit. A higher price for a disproportionately smaller product brings no added profit. None are so directly interested in the conservation of mussels as the fishermen themselves. Of what advantage is it to the fishermen of the Wabash River, or to the State of Indiana, that shells are now more valuable, when a river that once supported a really important shelling industry is now practically depleted? Wherein is the benefit to Illinois, when only one fisherman can engage in shelling to-day where six worked with profit five years ago? What profit will Arkansas find, when its rivers are now the scene of the most exhaustive mussel fishery ever known and the future is being robbed by the removal of infant shells that are shipped to the markets to be subsequently thrown into the discard by the manufacturers as too small for any useful purpose? THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY.