_Decline of the Natural Clam Supply._--The decline of the clam supply is a matter of general knowledge. People who live along the seashore realize that they can no longer gather the amount of clams they once could dig with ease from the same flats. On the southern shore of the State especially it is oftentimes difficult to obtain even enough for family use. The consumer also realizes the loss of the clam, as he is forced to pay higher prices. If specific cases of this decline are demanded, the following instances should show the exact depletion in the various localities. Even in the best clam-producing town of the State, Newburyport, where the clam production, according to statistics, has apparently increased during the last twenty-five years (as a result of more men entering the fishery), the supply has shown signs of failing. Essex now possesses many acres of flats formerly productive which now lie in a practically barren condition. Gloucester can no longer boast of her former clam industry, as the flats in Annisquam River are in poor condition. Hardly 30 men now make a business of clamming in that town, whereas 92 men were engaged in the fishery in 1879. Passing south of Gloucester, we find great evidence of decline in the Boston harbor flats. Even before the edict closing the harbor from clammers was in force, the production did not by any means equal that of 1879. Plymouth harbor, including the three towns of Duxbury, Kingston and Plymouth, furnishes an excellent illustration of this decline. Here an area of flats as extensive as all the other flats of the State combined now lies practically barren, whereas in former times great quantities of clams were taken. These flats had already become depleted to a marked extent by 1879, and to-day practically no clams are shipped to market from the Duxbury flats, although you can still read "Duxbury clams" on the menus of the hotels and restaurants, showing how important a clam industry this town once possessed. Buzzards Bay district lies at present unproductive except for supplying home consumption and the demands of the summer people. The shores of Cape Cod no longer yield their former supply of clams, and the most striking example of the extinction of a flourishing fishery is found in the town of Chatham, which now does not produce one-tenth part of its production in 1879. The Fall River or Narragansett Bay district does not come up to its past productiveness, and now chiefly yields clams which in former times would have been considered as too small to use.