year.
Fine fancies such as were found at one time in the Sugar River,
Wisconsin, since the fisheries there have been exhausted, are scarce
and high.
The
low prices paid by button manufacturers for mussel shells for the
mother-of-pearl in them during the past year, has been one of the chief
factors in reducing the quantity of pearls found and the consequent
increase of price. It seldom pays the fisher to gather mussels for
pearls only; it is the steady returns from the sale of the shells which
ensures an adequate reward for his labors. Shells that once brought
twenty dollars per ton fell during the early part of 1905 to a third of
that amount and later went as low as two dollars and a half. They are
now going up again.
Many
pearls are seriously injured by the practice of fishers who rely upon
the sale of the shells for their returns, of throwing the mussels into
vats of hot water to open them. The pearls released from the shells
fall to the bottom and getting too near the hot iron are killed, which
means that the luster is partially or wholly destroyed.
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