OF MASSACHUSETTS. 203 



quantity. As these flats have changed scarcely at all for many years, 

 is it unreasonable to suppose that they ever have been very suitable 

 since the first settlement of the country? 



As for the historical records referred to, the weight of evidence 

 everywhere tends to prove that many years ago there was a fairly 

 large output of clams yearly from Duxbury. But while this output was 

 large in itself, it was, in proportion to the possible area, exceedingly 

 small. Mr. Ernest Ingersoll states that in 1879 there were yearly 

 exported from Duxbury 5,000 bushels of clams. At that time, he 

 says, the industry had declined. Clamming was then prosecuted with 

 no such vigor as at the present time, for the price was low, and the 

 demand, except for bait, by no means excessive. Clams had not yet 

 come to be looked on as such important articles of food as at present, 

 and the business of digging them as carried on then could have made 

 little inroad on well-stocked flats. The great probability is that only 

 a small percentage of the whole territory was ever very productive. 

 An observer at the present time, viewing from an eminence the flats of 

 Duxbury at low tide, could not help being struck with the singular 

 appearance which they present. He would see spread out before him 

 a broad expanse apparently of green meadows, with long, narrow 

 streams of water winding in and out among them. These seeming 

 meadows, stretching on mile after mile, broken here and there by a 

 patch of clear sand, are the tidal flats of Duxbury, more than 2,700 

 acres of which are covered with a thick growth of eel grass. 



How many years this eel grass has covered the flats no one knows. 

 It shifts somewhat, as the ice in winter sometimes plows up an immense 

 surface, stripping it of its green covering. For the most part it seems 

 to grow steadily year after year, until the roots, decaying stalks and the 

 fine sediment which they have collected build up a spongy crust over the 

 true bed of the flat. It is this spongy, clayey soil which is the pre- 

 dominant type in the eel-grass region, though a large area is soft mud 

 with little patches of hard sand. It does not seem surprising that clams 

 are not abundant in this soggy medium, covered with its thick matting 

 of grass. Clams do exist, however, for occasionally when the ice in 

 the winter storms has scraped bare a section of these flats, scattering 

 large clams can be found. 



Whether anything can be done with these eel-grass flats on a suffi- 

 ciently large scale to render the undertaking profitable, and whether 

 they would prove good ground for clam culture if the eel grass were 

 removed, is a problem. However, the sand flats free from eel grass 

 comprise nearly 800 acres, an area sufficient in itself to furnish a 

 very large industry for the town. Smooth, hard and unshifting, they 

 have the appearance of being in every way suitable for the production 

 of an enormous amount of shellfish. Yet, barring cockles, mussels and 

 razor clams, shellfish are rare on most of these flats, which, in spite 

 of their inviting appearance, are practically barren. 



