The Protection of Fresh-Water Mussels (Illustrated)

Author Preface:

The Mussel Industry

The history of the fresh-water mussel industry gives illustration of the promptness with which an American industry may be developed once the pathway is found. Undertaken in a small way scarcely more than a score of years ago, the manufacture of pearl buttons began almost immediately to assume the proportions of an important national industry. As early as 1898, when the enterprise was only 6 years old, there were about 50 factories in more than a dozen towns along the Mississippi. With improved machinery and methods further expansion occurred, until within a few years the output approximated 30 million gross of buttons, with a value of many millions of dollars. The growth of the industry has continued to the present time, but exact figures will not be available until the Bureau has completed a statistical survey now in progress.

Not less important has been a resultant economic change, or modification of custom, that has affected practically every person in the country. Where marine pearl was in rare use, fresh-water pearl, with its quality and price, came to fill a universal requirement. In one decade pearl buttons were high in price, used only upon the better clothing, and commonly saved when clothing was discarded, while in the most general use were buttons of metal or agate or wood, which rusted or broke or warped. In the next decade good pearl buttons, neat and durable, were available to everybody and used upon the widest variety of clothing. A former luxury had become a common necessity.

Coincident with the rise of the manufacturing industry, there developed an important and widespread fishery, directly employing thousands of persons and indirectly affecting persons and communities of varied occupation. Commencing on the Mississippi [4]River, the fishery gradually spread from stream to stream, passing from depleted territory to new and rich fields, until it embraced practically the entire Mississippi Basin and a portion of the Great Lakes drainage, from Minnesota to Louisiana, north and south, and from Ohio, West Virginia, and Tennessee on the east to Arkansas, Kansas, and South Dakota on the west.

CHAP. PAGE
Present conditions 3
The mussel industry 3
Depletion of the resources 4
The interests of the community 5
Artificial propagation of mussels by the Government 7
Establishment of propagation 7
Results dependent upon protection 8
Protection 9
Essential considerations for effective legislation 9
Examination of protective measures 10
Two measures for immediate application 10
Measures not suited to existing conditions 10
Size limit—necessity and application 12
Exhaustive nature of the fishery 12
Waste illustrated 13
Size limit in relation to economy 15
Reasons for the proposed 2-inch limit 16
Details essential to effective legislation 17
Closed regions—necessity and application 18
Injury to spawning mussels and to young 18
Considerations determining size of closed regions 19
Practicable division of river systems illustrated 20
Procedure for establishing closed regions 21
Enforcement of the law 22
Summary of recommended legislation 23