"Bully for him!" cried Colin.
"That was only the beginning," the Deputy Commissioner continued. "The ingenious stranger now began to consider what food it was that attracted these birds, and to his surprise, instead of worms, found that they lived on an unknown
black shellfish, now called mussels. If the birds ate mussels and the birds were good to eat, Walton reasoned that mussels must be fit for food. He ate some in order to find out."
"That's the real scientific spirit," said Colin, laughing.
"He was Irish and willing to take a chance," was the smiling rejoinder. "However that may be, he not only found that they were good to eat, but that they were good eating. He had hard work to persuade the villagers to his point of view, although his success with the birds had made him a sort of hero. Soon, however, mussels came to be in great demand. Then Walton noticed that young mussels in great numbers were gathering on the submerged stakes of his net, and being prolific of ideas, he promptly had several hundred more stakes cut and driven into the mud. He found, then, that mussels thus suspended over the mud grew fatter and of better flavor, and accordingly designed frames with interlacing branches which collected them by hundreds. This system, known as the 'buchot' system, has been practiced continuously at the village of Esnandes during all the centuries since that time, and the income to the little village last year was over one hundred
and twelve thousand dollars as a result of the ingenuity of the castaway Irishman."
"Then mussels are fit for food," Colin said in surprise. "I thought they were only used for bait."
"Mussels, sea-mussels that is, are as good a food as clams,—some people claim that they are better,—and they have just about three times as much food value as the oyster. That's why I told you the story. We expect to make the mussel industry as important as the clam fishery, giving employment to thousands of people and establishing what is practically a new food supply in the United States, although it is common throughout the shore countries of Europe."
"But the pearl mussels," queried Colin, "can you eat those, too?"
"It is doubtful," was the reply, "but their value lies so largely in their use for mother-of-pearl in the button industry, that their food value would be of only secondary importance, unless they could be pickled or canned, as is done sometimes with the sea-mussels. But, Colin," he added, "if you think that the mussel doesn't sound an interesting subject, let me tell you that I think it is, in itself, one of the most interesting