BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 269 



37.— STATISTICS OF THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES 



IN 1S80. 



TFroni the Compendium of the Tenth Census.] 



The statistics of fisheries have been a blank, or, it would be more 

 proper to say, a blotted page of the census reports, ever since those 

 statistics were first sought to be obtained in 1850. It is questionable 

 whether the results obtained ever reached 20 if indeed they ever 

 reached 15 per cent, of the actual facts. The census of 1870 reported 

 a total value of products of ouly $11,000,000, among the items being 

 647,312 bushels of oysters. Statistics like these were only calculated to 

 briug the census into discredit, even when they did not have conse- 

 quences of a more practical nature, as in the international arbitration of 

 Halifax in 1877. 



Under the provision of the act of March 3, 1879, the Superintendent, 

 in June, completed arrangements with Professor Baird, Secretary of the 

 Smithsonian Institution and president of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission, by which the scientific direction of a comprehensive investiga- 

 tion into the statistics of the fisheries and the fishmg populations of the 

 United States should be assumed by himself, while the administrative 

 charge of the service remained with the Census Office. 



The details of the scheme having been arranged, a number of experts 

 and skilled assistants, under the personal supervision of G. Brown 

 Goode, were put into the field in the early summer. 



Special canvassers, well trained for such inquiries, were engaged to 

 proceed in vessels along the entire eastern and southern coast, from 

 Maine to Texas, visiting every fishing port or fishing village, and col- 

 lecting the whole body of social and industrial statistics of the popu- 

 lations engaged in this occupation, together with all facts of economic 

 interest relating to the habits and the haunts of the various species of 

 fish, the methods and apparatus employed, the labor systems in vogue, 

 &c. 



Other parties were engaged to canvass the Pacific coast, the northern 

 lakes, and the western rivers, while special agents were engaged to 

 work up the oyster fishery, and to obtain the statistics of the fish mar- 

 kets of the principal ports. 



Some of these parties have now been four months in the field. The 

 character of the reports already received puts the success of this in- 

 vestigation beyond a reasonable doubt. Already large bodies of ma- 

 terial are being compiled and tabulated in this office. The work will 

 be actively prosecuted through the winter and the coming summer, 

 until every portion of the field shall have been covered. 



