Vernon County censor. [volume] (Viroqua, Wis.) 1865-1955, 1906-10-24

4 ever proceed very Tar with plan TO
license private clam-planting, because
local clammers are sure to rise upahG
say that to permit private use of the
hats is to encourage monopoly. AMI
SO lest somebody should get more
CLANS than he ought the township
goes on arranging that some day no
body shall have any CLAIMS at all.
Obviously the remedy for this is To
take the matter out of local hands amt
put it into the control of the Fish
cries Commission. which is used 70
dealing with petty spites and injured
interests and know how to get out o.
the natural wealth of the State the
greatest good for the greatest number.
With this consummation in MUD
the commission has been for the
past summer hard at work upon inves-
legations as to best way of growing
CLAIMS. Absurd as it may seem, they
have not been able to protect then ex-
perimental beds from clammers BY
notices against trespassing; for not
even the commonwealth may claim
exclusive rights to sections of her
own shore. In some cases the lite
saving crews undertook to keep off
clam-diggers, and in others the expert
mentors took the precaution to cover
the surface of the flats with stout wire
netting, which didn't interfere with
the clans but made digging unproft-
able.
At Dartomuth, Onset, Monument
Beach, Woods Hole, Harwichport,
Nantucket, Chatham, Monomoy Point.
Provincetown, Gloucester, Essex and
the Annisquam river they laid out
farms-sixty beds i'll all. These were
carefully planned to be either 1-10J
or 1900 of an acre, SO that in compu-
tation the acre might be used as the
unit. At the four corners they drove
a double set of posts, one tan, and
one sunk level with the sand so that
in case ice should carry away the
standing post the landmark might
not be altogether lost In order that
their experiments should be OF any
value it was necessary to begin by
thoroughly Kidding the site of free
hold clams-a task which was arduous
| and long-drawn out Then followed
| the business If planting
One way to plant clans is to go
ever your fiat with a sharp stick, dig
a little hole for each clam and per-
! sonally put him in it, siphon-end up
with care. In that way you can tell
with accuracy just how the shells are
! distributed. This being rather a te-
dious process, most people resort u
the more practical one of spreading
! the young clans over the surface, as
many to the foot as is thought proper
and letting them plant themselves,
which they do with surprising rapid
ity, digging down with a speed in in
verse ratio to their size The trouble
with this method is that when the
tide comes in it is likely to bunch up
the clans
/ The experimenters under the direc-
ton of Professor James L. Kellogg of
Williams college have undertaken to
find out how many CLAIMS can live to-
gether in {. square foot of mud, which
size of clam is best to plant, whether
they grow best crowded or thinly
planted. at what point between tide
marks it is best 70 start beds, and how
the abundance or meagerness of a
soils, by fast or slow currents, foods
and the like. Moreover. they are in
yestigating biologically the life-hisory
of the animal.
! 1t is odd, considering how much is
! known about such skittish and wary
! creatures as the squirrel and the field
mouse, that nobody has hitherto fer
reted out the secrets of the slow. if
non-committal clam. Nobody can
tell us how old a clam is before it
| spawns, how long the spawning sea-
son is, nor what conditions influence
| teh abundance or meagerness of Il
set of spat." 1t is known that here
and there a set may be almost too
| heavy, as in the Annisquam river,
| where clans are now living all
| squeezed up, six hundred of them TO
! the square foot, fairly pushing one an
other out of the mud in their growth
They are studying conditions at An
nisquam now to determine if possible
the reason for such abnormal settle
ment as that 1t is known that sud
den cod kills millions of embryo
clans, and that millions more are
smothered in too Shiny mud. But the
question of spat collectors, so long
thoroughly canvassed for the oyster,
is still an open one for the clam.
When first taken cognizance of by
science the clam is a floating egg,
which in few hours becomes a bob
bling globule of ciliated cells. in six
hours move it has begun to change its
shape; thecells at the lower rim of the
/ globe have migrated inward and ~
ward and the future clam is SYM
metrical bell The migrated cells
| have ceased to swim with the ella,
but use them instead to lash foou-pa :
ticles toward them. attending to the d.
gestiye needs of the colony. while the
upper cells look after locomotion.
After a time a Set of cells on one
shoulder of the bell begin to take lime
/ from the water and start a shell
When this gets so large that swim
ming is only possible by the protru-
sion OF the ciliated part, the clam,
now about a sixteenth of an inch long,