THE CLAM FARM 215 



men, not of farms. We must have clams ; some- 

 body must dig clams ; and matters of the spirit 

 all aside, reckoned simply as a small business, 

 clam-farming offers a sure living, a free, inde- 

 pendent, healthful, outdoor living and hence 

 an ample living to thousands of men who may 

 lack the capital, or the capabilities, or, indeed, 

 the time for the larger undertakings. And viewed 

 as the least part of the coming shell-fish industry, 

 and this in turn as a smallest part of the coming 

 national industry, due to our reclaiming, restock- 

 ing, and conserving, and wise leasing, the clam 

 farm becomes a type, a promise ; it becomes the 

 shore of a new country, a larger, richer, longer- 

 lasting country than our pioneer fathers found 

 here. 



For behold the clam crop how it grows ! 

 precisely like any other crop, in the summer, or 

 more exactly, from about the first of May to the 

 first of December ; and the growth is very rapid, 

 a seed-clam an inch long at the May planting, 

 developing in some localities (as in the Essex 

 and Ipswich rivers) into a marketable clam, three 

 inches long by December. This is an increase 

 in volume of about nine hundred per cent. The 



