STATE LAWS FOR THE UNIFORM PROTECTION 

 AND PROPAGATION OF FOOD FISH. 



By BUSHROD W. JAMES, A. M., M. D., Philadelphia, Pa. 



The extended superficial area of the United States, with its 

 waterways permeating far into the interior, from the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific Ocean, and the Gulf of Mexico, warrants the protec- 

 tion of these streams to prevent the annihilation of the fish, as 

 well as for their extended propagation and growth, as very great 

 values may be obtained in a few years by the operation of judicious 

 and well-considered legal enactments for the protection of the 

 streams in which the fish are placed when very young, and for 

 clearing and keeping clear these streams from all devices which 

 tend to the capture of the fish before they have had opportunitv 

 of spawning in the \yaters which they frequent. 



Most of the States into which streams enter from the ocean 

 have already passed laws looking to this need, and New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania, being border States of the Delaware River, 

 many years ago entered into a compact to protect the stream in 

 this manner, and keep it an open waterway or highway, and as 

 a result the money value of the fish caught in that river is increas- 

 ing annually many thousands of dollars. The Susquehanna, 

 which passes through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, has not 

 as yet received the ample protective laws needed, and the result 

 is that the money value of the food taken in the way of fish from 

 that stream has been at a standstill for years and, in fact, has 

 been diminishing in value. 



The Delaware River rises well up in the interior of the 

 State of New York, so that we have the States of Delaware, 

 New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York all interested in this 

 valuable waterway. What is said of this eastern stream might 

 be said of western rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean, and we 

 might likewise add the great aqueous artery of the continent, the 

 Mississippi, and its branches, which, no doubt, might contain many 

 million dollars' worth more of food fish than they now do; and 

 yet, each State having the right to make fish-protective laws, might 

 find the laws quite annulled by other States through whose bor- 

 ders the streams pass, the more northern States being at the 

 mercy of those far down the river whose laws are not enforced. 



