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proselytes, we hope, from every county in the State, thus bringing an influence to 

 bear upon members of the legislature, Public sentiment is the natural power by 

 which we must move in effecting a revolution of this kind. 



While the people of our state generally sympathize with the efforts of the 

 Commission in the conduct of its work, and give us much encouragement, there 

 are, in our state as well as in every community, some individuals who think that 

 the state ought not to contribute to this work because, as they insist, no one but 

 the person immediately interested in the fishing industry reaps a benefit. It is 

 gratifying to know that but few men look at the question in this narrow way. 

 With such men as these we use the argument that any industry which brings 

 into the state a large amount of money each year contributes to the general 

 prosperity, as the money so realized is disseminated through the ordinary chan- 

 nels of trade, and redounds to the advantage of everybody ; we might as well say 

 that the State of Michigan had no business to have originally invested more than 

 eight hundred thousand acres of the public domain in the construction of the ship 

 canal at Sault Ste. Marie. That it would be equally true to say of this enter- 

 prise that the people of the state are not interested in it, when reflection would 

 show that the vast mining industries of the upper peninsula of Michigan, which 

 owe their great value to this improvement, could only have been made produc- 

 tive by this outlay, and that no one would have the hardihood to gainsay the fact 

 that the money which continually flows into Michigan in exchange for this 

 mineral wealth, does not benefit the people at large. 



And now let me say a word with regard to the great Lake of Ontario, which 

 lies at the door of New York and the Province of Ontario, and in which you should 

 have a keen and lasting interest. It is a matter of regret that New York and 

 the Province of Ontario should have been so derelict in their duty as to permit 

 this great lake with its whitetish industry, to have fallen into absolute decay 

 without raising a hand to arrest it. There was a time, within my own personal 

 j-emembrance, when these waters were so productive that in the fall of the year 

 the product of the fisheries along the New York line were distributed for miles 

 inland from its shores to the farming community of Northern New York. But 

 that time has long passed, and the nets of the fishermen have been withdrawn from 

 these waters and the industry has been deserted as one which is no longer 

 profitable. You have here at your doors a great lake which nature has 

 provided with an ample store of natural food of commercial fishes, and all 

 that it lacks is an ade([uate restocking at the hands of the State. There never 

 was a water better fitted to be stocked by those who are interested in artificial 

 propagation than Lake Ontario You have it in your power here to demonstrate 

 beyond question, the advantages of artificial propagation and restocking. The 

 conditions of this lake are such that with the practical abandonment of the fishing 

 industry you are now at liberty to secure, without opposition from fishermen, pro- 

 per and just restrictive laws with which to protect the fish if you should restock the 

 lake. The amount of outlay necessary to establish proper stations upon this lake 

 for the hatching and distribution of fry, would be but a mere bagatelle to such 

 wealthy States and Provinces as lie upon its borders. The results of such a re- 

 stocking, if intelligentl}^ conducted, will in the years to come make the fisheries 

 of this lake a source of gi-eat revenue to the State. 



While I do not decry the attempt on the part of the general government to 

 contribute its share of work to this end — on the contrary, 1 welcome it — yet I say 

 that the efforts of all interested, cannot be too thoroughly devoted to this object. 

 I speak of the State and the Province engaging in this work for the simple reason 

 that they are more directly interested in this matter than anyone else can be, and 



