186 U. 8. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
FOREWORD 
This report constitutes a summary of the activities of the Division 
of Fishery Industries, as well as a review of the fishery statistics 
collected by the Division during the past year. As its name indicates, 
this Division of the Bureau is concerned with the activities and 
welfare of the commercial fisheries and fishery industries and the 
fishermen and shoresmen engaged therein; the fish canning and 
preserving industries; and the trade in fishery products. Its functions 
include the conduct of studies or activities: (1) To determine the 
extent and magnitude of our aquatic resources and the commercial 
importance of our fishery industries; (2) to learn the economic con- 
dition of fishermen and shoresmen engaged in the fishery industry, 
their place in the national economy, and what measures can be taken 
to improve their well-being; (3) to determine the character, utility, 
and effectiveness of different forms of fishing apparatus and vessels, 
suggest Improvements therein, and discourage the use of those forms 
which are unnecessarily destructive or unprofitable; (4) to learn the 
effect of fishing on the supply of fish and suggest measures to promote 
orderly and sustained preduction; (5) to study and develop fisheries 
for hitherto unutilized fishes; (6) to investigate the preservation of 
fishery products, suggest improved methods, and discourage wasteful 
practices in this field; (7) to ascertain what use can be made of aquatic 
products not now utilized to economic advantage: (8) to inquire into 
the nutritive value of aquatic foods for man and his domestic animals, 
and promote the consumption of these foods; (9) to ascertain the 
means and methods of transporting fishery products on land and sea 
and recommend economical practices; (10) to inquire into the condition 
and extent of the wholesale and retail trade in fishery products and 
promote the more orderly marketing of our fishery harvest; (11) to 
introduce useful foreign methods or processes of capture, preservation, 
utilization, or marketing fishery products; (12) to handle matters 
relative to the administration of the act which authorizes cooperative 
associations of producers of aquatic products; and (13) to conduct the 
Fishery Market News Service authorized by act of Congress in 1937. 
Results of the various technological, economic, and marketing in- 
vestigations carried on by the Division are published in separate 
documents as each project is completed, and a brief résumé of each 
current project is contained in this report. Information obtained 
from statistical surveys is published in part 2 of this report, which 
includes all the detailed statistical information that has become avail- 
able since issuance of the previous report,’ together with such sum- 
marized statements and interpretations of the statistics as are deemed 
significant and useful. | 
* Fishery Industries of the United States, 1938, by R. H. Fiedler: Appendix III to the Report of the U.S. 
Commissioner of Fisheries for 1939, pp. 169-544. 
