208 THE FACE OF THE FIELDS 



when one's back is n't turned, can harvest as his 

 own"? Yet this the fishing laws of Massachusetts 

 still allow. Twenty years ago, in 1889, grants 

 were made for clam farms in and around the town 

 of Essex, but no legal rights were given with 

 the grants. Any native of Essex, by these old 

 barnacled laws, is free to help himself to clams 

 from any town flat. Of course the farm failed. 



Meantime the cry for clams has grown louder ; 

 the specialists in the new national college of con- 

 servators have been studying the subject ; " ex- 

 tension courses," inter-flat conventions, and lab- 

 oratory demonstrations have been had up and 

 down the coast; and as a result, the clam farm in 

 Essex, since the reissue of the grants in 1906, has 

 been put upon a hopeful, upon a safe and paying 

 basis. 



It is an interesting example of education, a 

 local public sentiment refined into an actual, de- 

 pendable public conscience ; in this case largely 

 through the efforts of a state's Fish and Game 

 Commission, whose biologists, working with the 

 accuracy, patience, and disinterestedness of the 

 scientist, and with the practical good sense of 

 the farmer, made their trial clam gardens pay, 



