3o6 SALT-WATER FISHES 



River. From this small and recent beginning shad are now 

 to be found in abundance in all the Pacific rivers from Los 

 Angeles to "Wrangell Island, a distance of two thousand miles. 

 The Report of the Department for 1898 states that, on the 

 Atlantic coast alone, the value of the shad catch for 1896 — 

 thirteen million fish — was over 1,651,000 dollars, and declares 

 that since the hatcheries were started the added value of the 

 shad was more than sixty times the entire departmental 

 expenditure on shad propagation. It seems, then, that Mr. 

 Seth Green's experiments, while hardly noticed at the time, 

 were yet destined to reduce the price ot shad from a dollar 

 per fish to a dollar per eight fish, to bring this splendid food- 

 fish within reach of the very poorest classes of the community, 

 and to pay the fisher folk of the eastern seaboard a very 

 handsome revenue during the few weeks when the shad are 

 running to the rivers."* 



Many years ago I pointed out that the splendid success 

 which has attended the cultivation of shad in America made 

 it practically certain that there is nothing to prevent the 

 introduction of this fish into many of our rivers. The late 

 Mr. Fred Mather, the well-known American pisciculturist, 

 told me that the American fish is superior as a table-fish to the 

 European shad ; and if the experiment is ever made, it is to 

 be hoped that it will be possible to get over the American fish. 

 Unfortunately we have no public body like the United States 

 Fish Commission, which does such splendid work in increasing 

 and creating national food-supply, and indeed it seems im- 

 possible to expect any British Government to do more than 

 publish Blue Books and appoint Commissions to take evidence 

 as to the decay of our fisheries. As for thinking of devoting 

 public money for the establishment of fish hatcheries, and 

 increasing the supply of fish in our rivers by restraining over- 



* Extract from a most interesting article by Mr. Moreton Frewen on 

 " Fish Culture in America " in the Nineteenth Century for September, 

 1899. 



