CONFERENCE OF GOVERNORS. 61 



THE PRESERVATION AND PROPAGATION 

 OF MOLLUSKS. 



By Dk. George W. Field, Chairman Massachusetts Commission on 

 Fisheries and Game. 



Inteoduction. 



True and permanent progress rests upon accurate knowledge of 

 nature's constructive and destructive methods. The real " white 

 man's burden" is the acquisition and the rational application of 

 such knowledge to enable man to become a co-worker with nature 

 for the purpose of developing and accelerating nature's methods. 

 Eational practices originating in the human brain for the purpose 

 of improving nature's methods are already in efficient operation, 

 and are bringing in their train not alone abounding wealth to 

 individuals. States and eations, but also higher conceptions of 

 civic duties and nobler types of character and manhood. Notable 

 among such achievements of constructive assistance to nature are 

 the discovery and intensive agricultural applications of nature's 

 methods of the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen, thereby not alone 

 increasing the yield of wheat, corn and other food stuffs, but 

 checking general destructive and uneconomic agricultural practices. 

 Another method is the assistance to nature by initiating and accel- 

 erating natural variation and the artificial selection of such varia- 

 tions as promise improvements along definite lines, as in plant 

 and animal breeding. Still another is artificially averting the 

 attacks of natural enemies, thereby reducing the normal death 

 rate of both mature and immature plants and animals, — a prin- 

 ciple now generally applied in the case of domesticated plants and 

 animals and in fish culture. 



It is our purpose to-day to call your attention to certain obstacles 

 which in New England have thus far unfortunately prevented 

 similar applications and results in that portion of our territory on 

 the sea coast below high-water mark, — areas which are particu- 

 larly adapted for growing clams, quahaugs and scallops under 

 artificial cultivation. 



