INLAND FISHERIES. 91 



rapidly diminisliing-. Clam diggers everywhere on Narragausett 

 Ba}^ whom I have met during the present summer (1898) have 

 given the most discouraging reports. In some localities, where 

 clams were abundant four or five year ago, almost none can now 

 be attained. The culture of oysters as carried on in Narragansett 

 Bay, Long Island Sound, and elsewhere on the New England 

 coast, has been attended by many great and serious difficulties, 

 and yet it has become, in the hands of enterprising men, a very 

 profitable business. In localities where it has been impossible to 

 obtain a set of "spat," where the beaches between tide marks 

 may not be used, where an annual rental of $10.00 an acre must 

 be paid, where the deadly starfish abounds, and where oysters 

 are purchased abroad and shipped great distances simply to be 

 spread upon the bottom and allowed to grow to a marketable 

 size, the business pays and is thriving. One or two abortive 

 attempts have been made to develop methods of clam culture in 

 this country, but for one reason or another — principally because 

 of a lack of protection by law from the depredations of clam 

 diggers — they have been discontinued. From the account of the 

 life-history of the long necked clam given above, it would appear 

 that it may be possible to develop culture methods which should 

 be productive of much greater results than those obtained by 

 oyster culture. Two or three points, brought out in the above 

 account, as well as some facts not yet mentioned, may well be 

 noticed as bearing on the solution of this economic problem. 



(a) Tlie hahit of <dtadi.ntent. 



Probably in many localities it would be possible, as it is in the 

 Kickemuit "River," to obtain great numbers of young clams in 

 the early summer, by simply gathering the floating seaweed to 

 which they are attached, and transporting them to localities where 

 the conditions should be most favorable for their further develojj- 

 ment. 



Though I have no facts bearing on this point, it may be possible 

 to bring- about an artificial fertilization of the ova of the clam in 



