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 bus 

 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 percent. The 



