4 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



The financial statement for the year 1908 is given at the end of this 

 general report. 



Your Commissioners also beg to call the attention of your Honorable 

 Body to the interesting fact that it was just forty years ago, at the 

 January session of the General Assembly in 1869, that the Committee 

 of Investigation of the Fisheries, appointed by the Governor under a 

 resolution of the General Assembly, submitted their report which led 

 to the immediate creation of the Commission of Inland Fisheries. 

 This committee was composed of Alfred Reed, Albert S. Gallup, 

 S. S. Foss, C. H. Tompkins, and E. D. Pearce, with Newton Dexter 

 as secretary. 



It is a noteworthy fact that the original Committee of Investiga- 

 tion and the Commissioners of Inland Fisheries from the creation of 

 the Commission to the present time have served without salary. To 

 the sort of interest in and devotion to the cause which this gratuitous 

 service implies is due, we believe, the success of its work and the 

 sympathetic support of the people of the State. 



STOCKING STREAMS. 



Forty thousand (40,000) yearling trout have been bought and 

 distributed, under the direct supervision of your Commissioners, to 

 various appropriate streams. On the first page of the report of the 

 Committee of Investigation before referred to occurs the significant 

 remark: "and the art of man unrestrained by law has not yet been 

 able to wholly extirpate trout, so favorable are our brooks and 

 ponds to the propagation of the young of fresh-water fishes." At 

 the present time there is no doubt in the minds of any who are 

 familiar with the facts that, were it not for the continual introduction 

 of trout and the regulation of the fishing, trout-fishing in Rhode 

 Island would be merely a memory. By reason of this constant 

 attention the trout-fishing has continued good, and in some years, in 

 some streams, it has been really remarkable. 



