24 EEPOET OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Green Bay is, perhaps, the ouly locality ou the lakes where this cau be 

 repeated with success, and it is well worth the attention of some one 

 with a small amount of money to invest.* 



It is the universal experience of fishermen that throwing offal on the 

 fishing- grounds is offensive to the white-fish and destructive to the fish- 

 ing-interests in the locality. A stringent law should be enforced in this 

 particular, as it is generally a shiftless, lazy man who is guilty of this 

 injury to his more worthy neighbors, as well as to himself. 



In thiSfcConnection it is well to refer to the fact that sawdust in many 

 lumber-mill localities is thrown into the streams, or is used to bauk out 

 in the shoal waters at the edge of a river; great quantities of it floating 

 out and water-logging, settle on the spawning-beds and feeding-grounds 

 of the white-fish, to decay, and drive them from the locality. 



With this discussion of the effects of different laws upon the fish- 

 ing-interests we would refer to the enlargement of the mesh in both 

 pound nets and gill-nets, prohibiting the throwing of offal upon the 

 fishing-grounds, and the useless dicstruction of sturgeon, as the most 

 necessary and desirable regulations to be established by legislation. 



It will be observed that the varying character of the fishing in differ- 

 ent regions requires discriminative legislation in favor of certain locali- 

 ties. Where the lake-herring is the principal fish taken, a mesh larger 

 than two inches would allow their escape. The provision of a close sea- 

 son, during the hot months of the summer, though, it will be seen, it 

 would afford an ample season in the spring and fall for the fisheries in 

 most localities, would debar all successful fishing to the larger extent 

 of the Illinois shore, where this season of the year is the only time when 

 fishing is attempted. The enlargement of the gill-net mesh to four and 

 a half inches, though a favorable regulation for all other portions of the 

 lake, should include an exception in favor of the region of Grand Traverse 

 Bay, Michigan, where the black-fin, a fish averaging much smaller in 

 size than the white-fish, is taken in large numbers. 



The Canadian laws are sweeping and stringent in character. By ex- 

 acting license-fees from the fishermen they control the extent of fishing 

 in all localities, and limit the number ot nets to each mile of the shore 

 in accordance with the judgment of the fishery-officers. Their system 

 of laws and policing the whole extent of shores is an expensive and 

 cumbersome method of protecting the fishes, and it is altogether prob- 

 able that the large amount of money, $30,195 in the year 1871, used 

 for this purpose, would increase the products of their fisheries to a much 

 greater extent, if expended in the propagation of those fishes adapted to 

 artificial culture. 



IS. — ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION. 



By far the more successful method, in restoring the numbers of food- 

 fishes, is that of artificial propagation. During the past several years, 

 the salmon in Norway, Sweden, Germany, France and the British isles, 



* Since undertaken. 



