CONFERENCE OF OOVERNORS. 71 



often result in enormous waste, on account of the local jealousies 

 between towns. The present laws harbor and encourage a totally 

 illogical and mistaken conception of the value of a closed season 

 for moUusks, and of closing certain areas to permit the " clams 

 to come back." When there is a scarcity of potatoes or wheat, 

 do the farmers demand a close season, or let the fields lie idle, 

 and wait for an increased crop " to come back " ? No ; they in- 

 crease the yield by extended acreage and well-advised efforts to 

 increase the yield per acre. The scarcity of shellfish can and must 

 be met in exactly the same way. It is entirely logical and certain. 

 Such a result will inevitably follow the enactment of suitable law. 

 The present shellfish laws of Massachusetts, too antiquated to fit 

 the changed conditions of two hundred and fifty years of progress, 

 have become so obscure and contradictory, by annual amendments 

 to meet local demands, that they are practically valueless, either 

 in their restrictive or constructive features. The so-called "free 

 fisherman " is now demanding an opportunity to be truly a free 

 fisherman. He wants to be freed from the incubus of ignorance 

 concerning nature's fisheries laws; he demands freedom from the 

 bankrupting tendencies of " close seasons," which do not do the 

 work expected; he is entitled to freedom from that type of com- 

 petition which compels the unnecessary destruction of breeding 

 animals and of the young which have not passed the period of 

 most rapid growth; he is entitled to freedom from the petty 

 Jealousies of town politics; he is justified in demanding security of 

 tenure amid the changes incidental to annual town and city elec- 

 tions; he is entitled to freedom to cultivate his submarine garden, 

 and to enjoy the benefits, financial and otherwise, equally with the 

 farmer. And the fisherman is entitled to immediate consideration. 

 For two hundred and fifty years he has been taught by false 

 prophets; he has shaped his course by false lights. Beneficent 

 laws have brought prosperiiy to the tillers of the soil, but the 

 fisherman finds the struggle becoming continuously more difficult. 

 He is constantly facing a decreasing yield and a decreasing daily 

 wage. Adequate laws will open on equal terms to every deserving 

 citizen abundant opportunities for developing submarine farming. 



There are at least four distinct classes within our Common- 

 wealth, each of which either derive direct benefits from the moUusk 

 fisheries of our coast, or are indirectly benefited by the products 

 of the tidal flats : — 



1. The general public, — the consumers, who ultimately pay 

 the cost, who may either buy the joint product of the labor and 



