NOXIOUS AND VALUABLE ANIMALS. 359 



Thus a profit of thirty cents on a bushel, or about forty per cent, on 

 the cost, is realized ; and the town of Wellfleet thereby realizes an in- 

 come of about 8,000 dollars annually. 



There are many small beds around Boston and the other seaports, 

 where single cargoes are spread out, but they are of little account. 

 The whole amount of oysters used annually in Massachusetts cannot 

 fall short of 100,000 bushels. 



The shells are still further valuable, but of these notice will be 

 taken elsewhere. 



The Clabi {Mya arcnaria) is still more important, in an economical 

 point of view, than the oyster. It is extremely prolific ; and its exhaust- 

 less banks are every day accessible during twelve of the twenty-four 

 hours. 



The principal clam-banks are along the coasts of Essex and Barn- 

 stable counties. Nowhere are more collected than on the flats of 

 Ipswich and Essex. But clams also abound on every muddy or sandy 

 flat, however small ; and there is perhaps not a mile of the whole 

 coast where clams may not be found. 



About 5,000 bushels of clams are annually brought to Boston mar- 

 ket, and as many more are doubtless consumed at other places. 



But it is not as an article of food for man, that the clam is princi- 

 pally important. Its chief use is as bait for fishing cod and haddock. 

 Nothing can be so easily procured and kept in a suitable state for bait 

 as the clam, and nothing else is so palatable to the fish. Immense 

 numbers are employed for this purpose. For the bank fisheries, the 

 shells are opened, and the animals taken out, put in barrels, and salted. 

 This is called Clam-bait. Not less than 5,000 barrels of clam-bait are 

 put up every year. Seven bushels of clams make about one barrel of 

 bait ; so that thirty or forty thousand bushels are used in this prepared 

 state, and perhaps as many more are used from the shell. The value 

 of the clam-bait is six or seven dollars per barrel. 



There are several other shells which, it is averred by those who 

 have tried them, are as palatable as the clam. The Quahog ( Venus 

 mercendria) is found in considerable numbers about Cape Cod, but it 

 is not fancied by Bostonians for food, though in the New York and 

 Philadelphia markets it is used almost to the exclusion of our common 

 clam. 



The Giant Clam, or, as some call it, the Hen Clam, {Mactra gi- 

 gantca,) is much esteemed by some. But it requires a long process 

 of bruising and maceration before it is sufiiciently lender for the table. 



