308 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



for what purpose the fish is most needed, "food" fish cannot lawfully be 

 caught, bought, sold, or possessed for any purpose other than human con- 

 sumption, nor can food fish be caught by the purse seine (one of the most 

 efficient implements); California limits the percentage of sardine catch 

 that can be manufactured into fish meal and oil; trawlers are (or were, 

 pre-war) limited, as being "too destructive," to four in Nova Scotia, one in 

 Newfoundland, and none in Norway; power dredges for oysters were for- 

 bidden in North Carolina until recently; there are many restrictions in all 

 the fishing States applying to kind, size, mode, and place of operation of 

 nets, traps, purse seines, etc., prohibitions of night and Sunday fishing, 

 regardless of the natural movements of fish, size limits, closed days and 

 seasons, limits on the amount of catch, hindrances to commerce into and 

 out of States, prohibitions of export of seed oysters, and a great number of 

 others. 



The commercial fisheries are also generally opposed in legislation by 

 anglers and sportsmen. The commercial fisheries are concerned with what 

 they can take out of the water ; the sportsman is more concerned with main- 

 taining a dense population of fish in the water so as to increase his chance 

 of catching something; the sportsman is interested only in "game" fishes, 

 i.e., the predators or killers, which, from the point of view of biological 

 efficiency of aquatic life as a whole, might in some cases better be extermi- 

 nated than conserved if it is within our power to do either. 



Some public supervision of the fisheries in public waters is doubtless 

 necessary, certainly more than is necessary for operations on privately 

 owned farms. It is our purpose here only to point out that the existence of 

 unnecessary and hampering legislation, whatever its origin or motive, is, 

 to the extent to which it is enforced, an economic factor which must be 

 taken seriously into account. Regulatory measures, necessary or not, which 

 forbid the use of efficient methods and compel the employment of excessive 

 labor for a given amount of production merely suppress the utilization of 

 aquatic resources. However, human nature being what it is, rational and 

 scientific legislation is hardly to be expected in a resource which is not 

 subject to private ownership. 



Technical and Industrial Progress of Fisheries and Agriculture. The in- 

 crease in efficiency of agricultural production of food and raw materials in 

 the United States is briefly summarized by Cooper, Barton, and Brodell 

 (1947) from the summary abstract of which a quotation will here suffice: 



In all farm production, each farm worker in wartime in 1945 produced enough 

 agricultural products to support himself and more than 13 others, whereas in 

 1920 one farm worker had supported himself and 9 other persons and in 1820, 

 himself and only a little more than 3 other persons.' 



7. Call (1929) points out that in colonial times 95 per cent of all producers were farmers, and 

 that in the first census (1790) 96 per cent of the population was rural (places of 2500 or fewer). 



