34 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



there is a wide difference in the growth of clams placed under differ- 

 ent circumstances ; second, under ordinarily favorable conditions, 

 a respectable marketable size is attained in about one year and a 

 half. The clams which set so thickly at Green's Island in 1901, 

 where nearly 8,000 were taken in a single shovelful of sand, have 

 been observed from time to time and records of their growth have 

 1 >een kept. A large number of these specimens were taken from the 

 island and transplanted into the various plots of shore reserved 

 for this purpose. The conditions under which the transplanted 

 clams have lived differ in the several localities, and differ, also, 

 from those at Green's Island. Besides these clams, we have had 

 under observation a valuable collection which were set in '91 and 

 '92 in the spat collector at Rumstick, arid we have also the sur- 

 vivors of the "artificial set," which is described more at length 

 under the next heading. The clams of the Green's Island set 

 which have remained there have grown somewhat less rapidly 

 than those which were transplanted at Wickford and the Kicke- 

 muit river. The figure 6, reprinted from the last report, repre- 

 sents the size of these clams at the time of transplanting, and 

 figures 7 and 8 their size when one year and a half old. These 

 figures show the average rate of growth in different localities. 

 The clams set and reared in the clam -catcher at Rumstick are 

 shown life-size in figure 17, the larger one representing the set of 

 tlif summer of 1901. 



< 'ontinued Growth of " Artificial Set." — This name has been ap- 

 plied to the clams which were caught from the water by the first 

 spat collector in the summer 1900. Thirteen hundred specimens 

 about tin- size of the Green's Island specimens in figure 6 were 

 taken in one square foot in this apparatus, and many of them were 

 transplanted and raised in boxes. Ad account of their growth has 

 been given in previous repents. The boxes have been placed in 



various localities, from time to time, ami the rate of growth has 

 been correspondingly increased and diminished. On the 22nd of 

 August, 1901, about a year after they were transplanted, the aver- 

 age length, computed from measurements of seventy-five speci- 



