214 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
developed sufficiently to reach that stage when they are able to look out for themselves. 
It is practically the same thing that the men interested in trout have been doing for 
the trout. They have kept the trout until they reached the fingerling stage, and the 
Rhode Island commission has been keeping the lobsters until they have reached the 
self-help stage. Of course a part of the itinerary in New England is a visit to the 
station at Wickford, where this work has been going on. And I might further add 
that I believe what I say in regard to the work of the commission there will be sub- 
scribed to by every practical fisherman in the state of Rhode Island, i. e., that the 
commission is working in perfect sympathy with the local fishermen. 
The paper is now open to discussion. I am sorry I have taken so much of the 
time myself. 
Mr. W. H. BoarpMAN (Rhode Island). Mr. President, I wish to corroborate Mr. 
‘Root’s statement, and refer to something he did not mention—a fact which has been 
brought to my attention especially, because I went down to visit the Block Island 
lobster fisheries. 
That year, or previous to two years ago, there was no lobster fishing there at all. 
The fishermen had gone out of business entirely. Of course at one time, years ago, 
the little ground surrounding the island was good ground for fishing; but, as I under- 
stand it, for the last six or seven years there have been absolutely no pots set around 
Block Island, because it did not pay. Last year two or three fishermen ventured to 
set a few traps, and they were successful to so great an extent that in this year, in 
July—no, in the early part of August—when I went down to visit those fisheries, I 
found 8o fishermen had engaged in the business, with 3,000 traps. In a visit of two 
or three days’ duration I saw quite a number of lobster fishermen come in with their 
daily catch, and it was simply enormous. Each daily catch represented a large profit. 
In some cases it would take fifteen minutes to dip it with a bucket from the car to 
the vehicle on the shore with which they went to the markets. They claim, without 
exception, and I have no doubt they are uniformly enforcing the law, that it is all due 
to the Rhode Island commission’s preventing the catching of less than g-inch lobsters 
and the fishermen’s sending what egg-bearing lobsters they have to our commission at 
Wickford, to be hatched and raised, as you say, to the fourth stage. 
The PRESIDENT. This island is a relatively small island, some 10 square miles in 
extent, in the mouth of Narragansett Bay—an island of, say, 5 miles in extreme length 
and 3 miles in width. 
I am inclined to dwell on this a moment, because the efforts to stimulate and revive 
a waning industry are so often fruitless that when activities result in apparently pro- 
nounced success it seems to me well for us to accentuate that. 
Are there other comments to be made upon this matter of the lobster fisheries? I 
wish that Professor Prince, if he is here, would speak. The work in this line I know has 
been carried on in thorough sympathy between the two governments. Are there others 
who will speak? If not, the next paper will be called for. 
Mr. DoNAHUE (State Fish Commissioner of Maine). Mr. President 
The PRESIDENT. Will you be good enough to come to the platform? Permit me 
to say to the foreign delegates that the lobster industry of the Maine coast is one of the 
most important in the United States. 
Mr. Donanue. During the remarks with reference to the lobster made by the gen- 
tleman who preceded me, it occurred to me that it might be of interest to some who are 
not as familiar with it as we are to know just what the conditions are as we find them 
in Maine, where we produce more lobsters than all the rest of the country combined and 
therefore think we ought to know something about the subject. 
We produced last year 8,000,000 pounds of large lobsters. We do not make our 
measurement as small as the other states. Massachusetts and Rhode Island have a 
g-inch law; so do the provinces. Our lobster, to be a legal lobster under the laws, must 
be approximately 1014 inches long. We changed our method of measuring at the last 
legislative session, which was a year ago last winter, on account of the curious way 
