I usually don't like to chime in with personal reminiscences, but...I'm
surprised that in the discussion on clams no one has mentioned treading for
them.  Many a high school boy in south Jersey did and probably still does
make a pretty good summer living from this work.  Usually several boys would
take a boat out a couple hours before low tide.  When you got to the area
you wanted to work you would put on canvas booties.  A square of canvas
folded in half with one edge sewn-up at home.  When you're ready to start
work, slip your heel into the sewn back and with a needle and stout thread
in the boat, sew up the top and bunch the excess at the toe and wrap the
rest of the thread around it.  Then you get in the water and, with a bushel
basket in an inner tube to put the clams in, you start shuffling along
backwards, bending to pick up the clams as you feel them.  Some guys could
slid the clams up their legs with their toes.  I only did this occasionally,
but the guys doing it all summer would average perhaps 4-5 bushels a day
making $40-60 per day, which was very good money then.  On the way back to
the docks the clams would be sorted by size, and at the docks the buyer
would be waiting.
     More relevant to the list is in regard to a comment made about
determining age from the shell.  You can also determine seasonality, when
the clam or oyster was eaten by examining thin sections of the chondrophore
or hinge portion of the shell.  We use this technique a lot in Maine to try
and establish seasonal movements of Native Americans.

Lee Cranmer
Maine Historic Preservation Commission