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?