26 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



VI. The Continuance of the Survey of the Shores of the 

 Bay for the Purpose of Determining Those Portions 

 Which Are Most Productive of Newly Set Clams. 



During the past season the commission have again made an ex- 

 amination of the shores of the Bay, to determine the clam set. 

 As stated in the previous reports, the comparison of results 

 from year to year shows that the set of clams varies in abundance 

 in successive years, and that, in certain localities, where the set is 

 very abundant in one year, there may be almost no clams in the 

 succeeding year. In the three years preceding the last summer, it 

 was possible to obtain from certain limited areas a very large 

 number of young clams, suitable for sowing, which measured, in 

 the latter part of July, from an eighth of an inch to about one- 

 half inch in length. In 1901, on the east shore of Green's Island 

 the set was the thickest that has thus far been observed. As 

 stated in the report for that year, nearly eight thousand (8,000) 

 small clams were dug in one shovelful of sand, and twenty bushels 

 of these minute specimens were taken from a comparatively sm all 

 area without noticeably decreasing the whole number. In 1900 a 

 small area on the Buttonwoods shore furnished also a very thick 

 set of clams. In 1899 similar thick sets were found on Cornelius 

 Island, near the entrance of Mill Cove in Wickford harbor. Dur- 

 ing the past season, however, the most diligent search in all these 

 localities, as well as in many others, failed to discover any area in 

 which the clams set in great abundance. 



At Green's Island the clams which set the year before are still ex- 

 tremely abundant, and they furnish an excellent opportunity to 

 observe the greater growth, and also to observe the rapidity with 

 which the clam diggers denude a productive area. During the 

 present year this area did not have one newly set clam to a thou- 

 sand of the year before. The explanation of this variation in the 

 thickness of the clam set in certain areas in successive years is 

 still to be discovered. That there were many free-swimming 



