676 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
shown to be approximately 50. It appears therefore that the plant should be 
annually at least twice what it was in 1903. If the writer remembers correctly 
the cost of producing whitefish fry has been in the recent experience of the 
United States Bureau of Fisheries about two cents per 1,000 in Michigan. At 
this rate the cost of planting per pound of fish caught would be about 2 mills. 
This correlation of an increased output of whitefish with a large intensive 
plant of fry and of a reduced production of whitefish or a stationary product 
with a small or diffuse plant of fry holds good in waters which are fished under 
the same restrictive legislative enactments. The Canadian waters of Lake 
Erie fall at one end of the above series, while the Canadian waters of Lake 
Superior fall at the other end of the series. These waters are fished under the 
same laws, dominion and provincial. The differences in their output can not 
therefore be referred to differences in legislative control. The Manistee-Frank- 
fort area and the Michigan southeast-shore area are fished under American non- 
restrictive enactments, while the Canadian waters of Lake Erie are fished 
under the restrictive laws already referred to, and yet both, having received 
large and intensive plants of whitefish fry, have yielded increased returns in 
spite of differences in the fishing regulations. 
The writer is forced to conclude that the increased production of white- 
fish in certain areas of the Great Lakes for the averages of five-year periods 
is due not to legislative enactment, but to the liberal and intensive planting 
of fry. 
EFFECT OF LEGISLATIVE ENACTMENT ON WHITEFISH PRODUCTION. 
An analysis of the fisheries regulations of the Dominion of Canada, the 
Province of Ontario, and the State of Michigan, under which the fisheries were 
carried on, the data of which are presented in this paper, can not be here under- 
taken. An act of the Michigan legislature of 1897 provides that, with certain 
minor exceptions, “it shall be unlawful for any person to fish with any kind 
of net whatever in the waters of this State from the thirtieth day of October to 
the fifteenth day of December.”’ The fisheries regulations of the Dominion of 
Canada provide a close season for whitefish from November 1 to November 30, 
inclusive, in the Province of Ontario, but certain waters of Lake Erie and the 
Detroit River and Lake St. Clair are excepted by recent enactment. So far as 
the close season is concerned the Michigan and Canadian regulations are in 
essential agreement. They both aim to protect the whitefish during the spawn- 
ing season. It is quite possible that the improvement in the whitefish fisheries 
in Michigan waters in recent years, as shown in the tables in this paper, is in 
part due to the close season which has been in force for about half of the period 
covered by these tables. That the improvement is not due wholly to the close 
season is clear when we remember that the Canadian whitefish catch has 
declined in many regions where a close season is enforced. The close season as 
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