THE MENHADEN FISHERY. 335 



weather, Lad 50 feet of her keel knocked out, together with eleven of the bottom planks, yet she 

 was run safely into port and taken upon a marine dock for repairs. 



The steamers are so constructed that they are not fit for s?a in rough weather, and they sel- 

 dom venture from harbor at such times. This frequently delays them from going to and coming 

 from the factory when fishing at a distance, though it does not iuterefere with the fishing in other 

 respects, as a seine caunot be managed in rough water, and the fish are then not apt to come to the 

 surface. 



The sailing vessels are either schooner or sloop rigged, many of them being open boats of from 

 5 to 10 tons measurement, while the larger vessels are in some cases 80 or 1)0 tons. 



Prior to 1879 fleets of vessels from Massachusetts ports were engaged in the capture of men- 

 haden to be used for bait. From Gloucester, forty schooners of from 20 to 70 tons, employing four 

 hundred men, were thus kept busy throughout the menhaden season in supplying the cod and 

 mackerel vessels with bait. In the same employment there were also hundreds of boats fitted with 

 gill-nets. It is probable that this branch of the menhaden business will be renewed when men- 

 haden reappear on those shores. 



With the advent of steam vessels the factories have increased their facilities for handling 

 large catches. The first factory could work up only a fe\v hundred barrels daily, while the large 

 factories can now take from 3,000 to 5,000 barrels per day. The average catch of a steamer a few 

 years ago was not more than 5,000 barrels, while now 20,000 barrels are not infrequently taken in 

 a season. 



The menhaden carry-away boat is a wide-beam, sloop-rigged open boat capable of heavy 

 burden, and is used, when fishing with sailing vessels, to carry their catch to the factory. Steamers 

 have no need of these boats, but take their fish direct to the factory. 



5. APPARATUS AND METHODS OF CAPTURE. 



Prior to 1860, when menhaden were of very small importance, the business of manufacturing 

 oil and guano being still in its infancy, almost the only use for the fish was as a fertilizer in its 

 raw state. This demand was then easily supplied by the use of haul-seines and gill-nets along the 

 shore. The fish then swarmed the bays and inlets all along the New England coast, and there is 

 good authority for a story that 1,300,000 were once taken with a single haul of a seine in New 

 Haven Harbor. Constant fishing on the northern coast has driven the fish out to sea, though in 

 the south their habits are much the same as of old. In New England the menhaden fishing has 

 become, to a very considerable extent, sea-fishing and is carried on by the fleet of steamers and 

 sailing craft. 



The purse-seine is the most effective apparatus ever devised for the capture of either mackerel 

 or menhaden. It has almost entirely superseded all other forms of apparatus in these fisheries. 

 By its use, even in the open sea, immense schools of fish are easily secured in a small fraction of 

 the time reqitired when the hook and line r.nd gill-net were chiefly employed. The purse-seine is, 

 however, not adapted for fishing in very shallow water, unless on smooth bottom, so that gill-nets 

 and haul seines are still used in rivers and in hauling fish ashore. When set in the water the purse- 

 seine is a flexible wall of twine hanging from a coiked line on its upper edge and extending from 

 75 to 150 feet beneath the surface and from 750 to 1,800 feet long. This wall is made to encircle 

 the school of fish, and then the lower edge is gathered up by a rope passing through rings, thus 

 forming an immense bag. The largest seines are for use in water 45 to 60 feet deep, and the 

 smallest in water about 20 feet deep. The usual size of mesh in the seines is 2i inches, that is, 1J 

 inches square; some are only 2^ inches, and in Chesapeake Bay, where the fish are small, they are 



