The Growth of the Soft Clam 317 



of the flats, local jealousies prohibiting the digging of 

 clams by ' outsiders,' and little or no care given to main- 

 taining the normal yield of the flats. The regulations 

 made by the selectmen or the mayor and aldermen are 

 usually but distinct attempts at checking the demand, by 

 prohibiting digging for certain periods, by limiting the 

 number legally to be dug by any one person, etc. It 

 would be quite as logical for a town or city to prohibit by 

 by-laws the use or digging of potatoes or any other food 

 crop, when the supply was short, rather than to attempt 

 to increase the supply. As a result, the unsystematic 

 methods of marketing have led to the premature destruc- 

 tion of far more clams than ever go to market; a similar 

 condition would exist if the farmer should dig over his 

 growing potato field before the crop matured, either in 

 the hope of finding a few marketable tubers, or to pre- 

 vent the possibility of his neighbor digging up the pota- 

 toes at that time or later. 



"... The owners of the land adjacent to the flats, 

 are under the present laws often subjected to annoyance 

 or loss by inability to safeguard their proper rights to a 

 certain degree of freedom from intruders and from 

 damage to bathing or boating facilities, which constitute 

 a definite portion of the value of shore property. 



"... That any one class should claim exclusive 

 ' natural valid rights,' over any other class, to the shell- 

 fish products of the shores, which the law states ex- 

 pressly are the property of ' the people,' is as absurd as to 

 claim that any class had exclusive natural rights to wild 

 strawberries, raspberries, cranberries or other wild fruits, 

 and that therefore the land upon which these grew could 

 not be used for the purpose of increasing the yield of 

 these fruits. This becomes the more absurd from the 



