MASSACHUSETTS: FALL EIVEE DISTEICT. 279 



contracted for before it is caught, and every owner is straining to fill his orders at the promised 

 time. The water is from 3 to 20 feet deep, and the tongiug not very difficult. The tongs used do 

 not work by the twisting of the grain of an oaken pivot, but on a brass swivel-pivot, known as the 

 ' Somerset' tongs. All, however, do not approve of the invention, averring that it wears out the 

 tongs. During the months of April and May about sixty persons are employed in Somerset alone, 

 and in other towns in proportion perhaps four hundred along the whole river who, as a rule, 

 live along the bank, and often own the boats they operate; if not owned, one is hired from their 

 employer at 25 cents a day. The catching is all done by the bushel. Now from 10 to 15 cents a 

 bushel is given, according to the scarcity of the mollusks, and a smart man might make $2 a day, 

 though the average will not exceed $1.50. Formerly wages were higher, and perhaps the lowering 

 has induced that constant effort on the part of the catchers to cheat the buyers, through false 

 measures, &c., which is so freely charged against them. 



" The ground is cleaned up pretty thoroughly by the time the 1st of June is reached, and in 

 the fall little raking is done, it being considered poor policy. A well-known lessee on the Freetown 

 shore, however, thinking, at the expiration of his lease a few years ago, that he would be unable 

 to renew it, resolved selfishly to dredge his whole land in the autumn, leaving as barren a ground 

 as possible for his successor a proceeding quite characteristic of the locality. He did so, but suc- 

 ceeded in renewing his lease, and returned to his raking the ensuing spring rather ruefully, 

 expecting to find little or nothing. To his astonishment, he picked off an area that had usually 

 yielded him 6,000 to 7,000 bushels no less than 12,000 ! Hence he concluded that the thorough 

 scraping had done the bottom good, though where he got the spawn at that late day is a mystery. 

 This small seed, less than a year old and about the size of your thumb-nail, is widely distributed, 

 going to beds on Cape Cod, in Buzzard's Bay, along the southern shore, and in all parts of the Narra- 

 gansett. It is highly esteemed on account of its hardiness. Wonderful stories are told of the cold 

 and heat, drought and exposure, water too salt and water too fresh, which it has survived and 

 prospered under. There is no difficulty about selling to planters all that can be raised, and the 

 present high prices are due to the rivalry which has been brought about between buyers. The 

 vessels which come to carry it away are small sloops and schooners of 30 or 40 tons, which carry 

 from 300 to 1,000 bushels. None, I think, is sent anywhere by rail. Starfishes nowadays are ^w 

 in Tauntou Eiver; but the borers (Urosalpinx cinereus) are growing more and more numerous and 

 troublesome. 



"SWANSEA. After leaving Taunton Eiver, pointing westward, the first point at which oysters 

 of any commercial consequence are met with is in Cole's Eiver, which flows into Mount Hope Bay, 

 almost on the boundary between Massachusetts and Ehode Island. It was known long ago that 

 oysters had inhabited this stream, and also Lee's Eiver, near by, and immense dead shells are occa- 

 sionally brought to light, but it had almost been forgotten until a few years ago, when there was 

 suddenly discovered near the mouth of the inlet a large bank of living oysters of fine quality. 

 Everybody at once rushed to rake them up, evading or discarding the special law enacted in 1867 

 for the protection of the oyster-beds in these very rivers. 



"The result of this onslaught was, that two or three seasons of it nearly extirpated the colony, 

 and the few to be obtained now are only got by hard effort on the part of a few professional river- 

 men, who peddle them in the neighborhood or take them to Fall Eiver. 



"The extensive banks and tide flats of this river, however, have long abounded in young 

 oysters, which were buried by the digging for clams, which is extensively carried on here, or frozen 

 by the winter weather, so that few, if any, survived, and none to speak of were gathered. Lately 

 a large gravel bank has been thrown up by the changed currents against the pier of the railway 



