The Growth of the Soft Clam 315 



common, they have succeeded in wasting and destroying 

 and exterminating quite as successfully as have the mo- 

 nopolistic owners of natural oil, anthracite coal, or timber 

 resources. 



There is a middle course between these extremes. It 

 has been explained that the oystermen, after a long 

 struggle, have forced the public to take that course, and 

 it has been generally recognized in the Atlantic states as 

 a just one, bringing hardship to no one, and developing 

 for the benefit of all a great industry that otherwise 

 could not have existed. Apparently no citizen who has 

 desired to taken an active part in oyster culture has been 

 prevented from doing so, either from lack of shore room 

 or from pressure brought to bear on him by strong com- 

 petitors; and there are now many times as many oysters 

 growing in some waters than ever existed in them under 

 a state of nature. 



There is every reason for taking the same middle 

 course in the disposition of the extensive area that might 

 yield an abundance of clams soft and hard clams alike. 

 There seems to be no reason to doubt that the result 

 would be as beneficial to the public in general as it has 

 been in the disposal of the oyster territory. The case as 

 it exists in New England is very clearly put by Dr. G. 

 W. Field, Chairman of the Massachusetts Fish and Game 

 Commission, who says : 



" The parallelism between the shellfisheries and agri- 

 cultural conditions, both historical and biological, is very 

 close. In each, the original inhabitants depended en- 

 tirely upon the natural products, and public ownership 

 of land and all natural utilities was universal. Later 

 there developed the advantage, and even the necessity, of 

 private ownership of land and its. products, if prosperity 



