22 



(7) Seining Privileges. — On North, Bass and Taunton rivers 

 privileges of seining alewives are sold under various restrictions 

 as to time, place and apparatus. The number of privileges 

 varies, depending upon the size of the river and the number 

 of riparian towns. 



Artificial Fisheries. 



Alewife fisheries have been artificially created in streams or 

 ponds where no alewives were previously found by the simple 

 expedient of connecting these ponds by canals either directly 

 with the salt water, as on Martha's Vineyard, or through 

 coastal streams, as in the case of Nine Mile Pond Stream in 

 Barnstable, thus affording accessible spawning grounds. 



Many natural alewife fisheries have been aided artificially 

 by extra canals, ditches and sluiceways constructed for the pur- 

 pose of facilitating fishing methods, and of increasing the de- 

 creasing supply in the coastal streams. Outlets which have 

 become closed through natural changes have been artificially 

 opened, and the fish permitted once more to frequent their old 

 spawning grounds. In certain instances the headwaters of one 

 stream have been joined to another by an artificial ditch, e.g., 

 Snipatuit Pond and Mattapoisett River, John's Pond and 

 Quashnet River, Long Pond and Herring River (Fig. 2). 



On Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard the simple procedure 

 of opening the brackish water ponds to the ocean by cutting 

 short ditches through the sandy beach has been followed ( Fig. 

 1). Owing to the shifting sand these ditches require reopening 

 nearly every year. The alewife industries on Nantucket and 

 Martha's Vineyard are good illustrations of the ability of man 

 to create successful fisheries artificially. Since but few streams 

 are found on these islands, the important fishing centers are 

 located in the large ponds near the salt water. The artificial or 

 partly artificial fisheries in Massachusetts naturally fall into 

 three groups: — 



Town-managed. - Very few artificial fisheries arc now oper- 

 ated for the public, because the majority have been developed 

 under long-term leases. 



Privately owned. — More often these fisheries are owned out- 

 right by the individual or corporation who first acquired through 



