REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 195 

 MINOR FIELD WORK. 



A number of other investigations, some of ti more or less local nature, 

 were undertaken by tlie division, among which the following- may be 

 mentioned : 



The canvass of the fisheries of the State of l^ew York, referred to in 

 a previous report, which began in May, 1889, occui)ied the next fiscal 

 year until August 21, when Mr. Charles H. Stevenson, the field agent 

 who had been conducting it, was transferred to work in the New Eng- 

 land States. This inquiry related to the calendar years 18S7 and 1888, 

 and the information was in part utilized in a statistical abstract of the 

 coast fisheries. 



In March, 1891, Mr. W. A. Wilcox made an examination of the whole- 

 sale fish and oyster trades of Philadelphia. Part of the information 

 obtained was utilized in a report on the statistics of the fishery indus- 

 tries, and part will be available for incorporation in a later report on 

 the fisheries of the Middle Atlantic States, the investigation of which 

 is contemplated. 



Independently of the extensive investigation of the entire fishing 

 industry of the ISTew England States, to which reference has been made, 

 Mr. F. F. Dimick, the local agent of the office at Boston, Mass., has 

 boarded each vessel landing fish at that port and obtained an ac- 

 count of the quantities and values of each kind of fish taken and the 

 grounds on which the fishing was done, together with other information 

 relating to the number and nationality of the crew, value of vessel, value 

 of outfit and apparatus, etc. As Boston is the center of the fresh-fish 

 fishery of Kew England, and as a large fleet of market and other ves- 

 sels belonging not only at Boston but at many other fishing ports on 

 the New England coast makes its headquarters at that place, the re- 

 turns thus made by Mr. Dimick convey a very good idea of the extent 

 and condition of the vessel fisheries of that region and are esiiecially 

 valuable in that they definitely indicate the actual and relative impor- 

 tance of the various fishing-grounds resorted to by the different vessels 

 engaging in the diftercut fisheries. Work essentially similar to that in 

 Boston is done by Capt. S. J. Martin, a local agent, at tlhiucester, 

 Mass., and taken in conjunction with the inquiry made by Mr. 

 Dimick in whole or in part covers the operations of nearly seven-eighths 

 of the offshore fishing vessels of New England. 



In June, 1891, Mr. Stevenson visited Wilmington, Del., and Newark, 

 N. J., to obtain certain statistical and other information concerning the 

 pori)oise fisheries on the North Carolina coast south of Cape Hatteras. 

 These are controlled by oil and leather companies located in the cities 

 named, and the data desired by the office could not be secured at the 

 time the agent visited the region in the course of the regular investi- 

 gation of the fisheries of North Carolina already alluded to. 



