194 [Senate 



baskets; and although our swamps abound in native willows, yet the 

 greater part of the raw material is imported from France and Hol- 

 land. The writer has seen them growing in various places in this 

 State, in New- Jersey and Michigan. 



The baskets and other a. tides manufactured from willow are of 

 the large kinds, which, owing to their lightness and bulk, cannot be 

 imported to atlvantage, and are therefore exclusively made by our 

 own artizans. But in the manufacture of the small and fine willow 

 baskets, they cannot compete with the French, who supply the Ame- 

 rican market with the finer kinds of split willow ware. The French 

 basket makers must either work for very low wages, or as is sus- 

 pected, there must be some method pursued of evading the duties, to 

 import and sell the fine basket work so low as to monopolize the 

 market. Our workmen can make all the varieties of willow ware, 

 but only the coarser and larger kimls with profit. Mr. Reed, who 

 has plantations of willow as above mentioned, resides in Southfield, is 

 a manufacturer of willov/ ware, but raises more than he works up, 

 and sends his surplus to the New-York market. 



NAVIGATION AND FISHERIES. 



By a preceding abstract of the censuf, it willbe seen that there are 

 only eight hundred and forty-one persons employed in agriculture in 

 Richmond county, being one-sixth of the male population; while 

 there are nearly as many engaged in navigation. Of those who make 

 their beds upon the water, a portion sail in the adjacent bays and ri- 

 vers, some embark on the wide Atlantic, and a few follow the whale 

 fishery in the Pacific Ocean. The insular situation of the county af- 

 fords facilities and inducements for a number of the inhabitants to 

 abandon the plow to go " plow in the deep." In 1840, there were 

 six hundred and fifty-three persons employed in navigation, which 

 causes a neglect in agriculture. The domestic fishery too, abstracts 

 greatly from the attention which would otherwise be applied to the 

 cultivation of the soil. 



Shad. — On the south side of the island, preparation is made in 

 March for the shad fishery, which continues in April and May. This 

 fish, when properly cooked, is one of the most exquisite and savory 

 of the finny tribe. It is a migratory fish, and visits the northern 

 streams annually, to deposit its eggs in the fresh water beyond the- 

 reach of the tides and voracious fish of the ocean. It formerly as- 

 cended the Hudson river above Stillwater, and spawned in Saratoga 

 lake, but the obstructions in its outlet, at the mouth of Fish creek, 

 have long since excluded them from that lake. 



After the shad has spawned, it becomes poor and thin, and so much 

 altered as hardly to be known for the same fish. The old fishes 

 which have not been taken in ascending our rivers, return with their 

 young, and pursue their way coastwise until they reach the gulf of 

 Mexico. Every spring, shad frequent the Delaware, the Hudson, the 

 Passaic and Connecticut rivers. They grow fatter as they gain more 

 northern latitudes. At Charleston, S. C, in Febr^arv they are not 

 esteemed. When they reach Philadelphia, in March, they are in 



