After about a year’s sojourn on these artificial beds the mussels are fit for the market. Before being ready for sale, they are transplanted to the buchots d’avant, which are placed close to the shore to admit of the mussels being easily gathered by the hand when ready for the market. A very perceptible difference in quality is seen in the mussels grown on different parts of the bay—those of the upper division possessing the finest flavour, while those of the lower divisions are much inferior, a circumstance caused no doubt by their suffering much more from the influence of the wind.
The mussel has become, by its abundance and cheapness, the daily food of the poorer classes, and sells well throughout the year. It is, however, only in season from the month of July till the end of January, and it is during that period that the most important operations of the farmer are carried on, and that the great part of the harvest is sent to the market. During the spawning season, which lasts from the end of February to the end of April, they lose their good flavour and become meagre and tough.
At the foot of the cliffs, along the shores, the boucholeurs dig large holes for the purpose of storing their implements of labour. When a supply of mussels is required for a neighbouring market the boucholeurs bring them in their canoes to the landing-place, whence they are conveyed by the wives to these stores, where they are cleared and packed in hampers and baskets, which are placed upon the backs of horses or in carts, and driven during the night to the place of destination, which is reached in good time for the opening of the market in the morning. About 140 horses and 90 carts are employed for the purpose of thus supplying the neighbouring towns and villages.
A well-peopled bouchot usually yields, according to the length of its sides, from 400 to 500 loads of mussels—that is at the rate of a load per metre. A load weighs 150 kilogrammes (about 3 cwts.), and sells for 5 francs. A single bouchot, therefore, bears about 60,000 or 75,000 kilogrammes annually in weight, of the value of from 2000 to 2500 francs. The whole harvest of these bouchots would therefore weigh from 30 to 35 millions of kilogrammes, which would yield a revenue of something like a million francs.
I hope this plan of mussel-culture will speedily be adopted on our own coasts; it would be a saving of both time and money to the fishermen, who cannot do without bait in large quantities, seeing that the number of hooks required for the line-fishing has so largely increased during late years. The procuring of the necessary quantity of mussels is sometimes impossible; and when that is the case the men cannot proceed to the fishing, but have to remain at home in forced idleness till the bait can be obtained. This plan of growing the mussels might be easily adopted by our fisher-folks, whom it is now my province to describe.
CHAPTER X.
THE FISHER-FOLK.
The Fisher-People the same everywhere—Growth of a Fishing Village—Marrying and giving in Marriage—The Fisher-Folks’ Dance—Newhaven near Edinburgh—Newhaven Fishwives—A Fishwife’s mode of doing Business—Superstitions—Fisherrow—Dunbar—Buckhaven—Cost of a Boat and its Gear—Scene of the Antiquary: Auchmithie—Smoking Haddocks—The Round of Fisher Life—“Finnan Haddies”—Fittie and its quaint Inhabitants—Across to Dieppe—Bay of the Departed—The Eel-Breeders of Comacchio—The French Fishwives—Narrative of a Fishwife—Buckie—Nicknames of the Fisher-Folk—Effects of a Storm on the Coast.