128 Our Food Mollusks 



little trouble. The set of spat may be so abundant as 

 to make planting operations easy and certain of success. 

 But there are always strenuous weeks of harvesting; rub- 

 bish and sea-weed may collect on the crop, or a hurri- 

 cane may descend upon it at any time; and he, like the 

 farmer, must be observant and always prepared to battle 

 against enemies and the weather if he expects to be 

 successful. Rewards are often large, but are only to 

 be had as the result of much labor. 



It will be interesting to compare the labors of the 

 oyster and clam culturists — when the latter come into 

 being. The returns to the clam culturist undoubtedly 

 will be large, and the labor that he will be compelled to 

 put on his fields will be trifling as compared with that of 

 the oysterman. 



