THE CLAM FARM 201 



Dighton a tale with a minus total of over two 

 million bushels of clams, and an annual minus 

 of nearly two millions of dollars to the clammers. 

 Nor is this the story of Massachusetts alone, 

 nor of the tide-flats alone. It is the story of the 

 whole of New England, inland as well as coast. 

 The New England farm was cleared, worked, 

 exhausted, and abandoned. The farmer was as 

 exhausted as his farm, and preferring the hazard 

 of new fortunes to the certain tragedy of the old, 

 went West. But that tale is told. The tide from 

 New England to the West is at slack ebb. There 

 is still a stream flowing out into the extreme 

 West ; rising in the Middle Western States, how- 

 ever, not in the East. The present New England 

 farmers are staying on their farms, except where 

 the city buyer wants an abandoned farm, and in- 

 sists upon its being abandoned at any price. So 

 will the clammer stay on his shore acres, for his 

 clams shall no more run out, causing him to turn 

 cod-fisher, or cranberry-picker, or to make worse 

 shift. The New England clam-digger of to-day 

 shall be a clam-farmer a dozen years hence ; and 

 his exhausted acres along shore, planted, culti- 

 vated, and protected by law, shall yield him a 



