THE CLAM FARM 213 



cobalt and rubber and wheat, and even squabs 

 and ginseng roots, are different, — according to 

 the advertisements. The inducements of the clam 

 farm are not sufficient to cause the prosperous 

 Middle-West farmer to sell out and come East, 

 as he has been selling out and going on to the 

 farther West, for its larger, cheaper firms, and 

 bigger crops. Farming, mining, lumbering, what- 

 ever we have had to do, in fact, directly with Na- 

 ture, has been for us, thus far, a speculation and a 

 gamble. Earnings have been out of all proportion 

 to investments, excessive, abnormal. We do not 

 earn, we strike it rich ; and we have struck it rich 

 so long in this vast rich land, that the strike has 

 lost its element of luck, being now the expected 

 thing, which, failing to happen, we sell out and 

 move on to the farthest West, where there is still 

 a land of chance. But that land is passing, and 

 with it is passing the lucky strike. The day is 

 approaching when a man will pay for a western 

 farm what he now pays for an eastern farm — the 

 actual market value, based upon what the land, 

 in expert hands, can be made yearly to yield. 

 Values will rise to an even, normal level; earn- 

 ings will settle to the same level; and the clam 



