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interested in the menhaden oil and guano business, 

 have yet to learn how it is possible for the net to take 

 the menhaden without taking the food fish it encloses, 

 especially when the depth of the water does not exceed 

 that of the net used ; so that it reaches to the bottom 

 and encloses a certain space of water, forming a flexible 

 wall from the surface to the bottom, then being pursed 

 up along the bottom, I would ask how is it possible for 

 the food fish to escape and the menhaden only be taken? 

 Aside from the waste of the food fish so taken, the 

 indiscriminate use of the purse net in the shallow 

 waters along the coast, in the ba3'S, inlets, and estuaries, 

 the natural feeding and spawning grounds of many of 

 our valuable food fish, drives them to other localities 

 and seriously affects their natural reproduction. 



From such statements of the value of the yearly 

 products as I have seen in print, the proportion gives 

 about sixty per cent, in guano and about forty per 

 cent, in oil. Food fish rendered may not add to the 

 product of oil, but do to the product of guano. The 

 subject of coast food fish supply is one that should 

 especially interest the hundreds of thousands of citizens 

 of the seaboard states ; that the present waste of food fish 

 from the indiscriminate use of the purse net by the 

 menhaden fishermen, within the three-mile limit, is an 

 abuse of the rights of all citizens. No business is 

 justified in using food fish, which were intended for 

 food for the people, for the purpose of manufacturing 

 into fertilizers; nor is any business justified the prose- 

 cution of which, in any way, interferes with the peo- 

 ple's supply of food fish. There should be proper 

 restrictions that would be just to all, to the menhaden 

 industry, as well as to millions of hard working citi- 

 zens who depend upon the continual food fish supply 

 for a livelihood, the niau}^ thousands who at times take 

 fish for food for their families, the many thousands 

 who, of choice, prefer to catch their supply of food fish 



