116 Tiventy-sivth A)i)iiial Meeting 



the best laws that can be thought out and worked out upon this 

 interesting, important and urgent question. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Post: Mr. President and Gentlemen: There was one 

 thing in the paper just read to which I wish to call the attention 

 of this association. One of the suggestions made is that we 

 attempt to protect these fisheries by United States enactments. 

 Now, tliat is throwing away your powder. • In the first 

 place, it has been determined over and over again by the courts 

 of the states and I)y the Supreme Court of the United States, as 

 was clearly shown in the case of the menhaden fisheries abuse, 

 that was before Congress for some years, that the United 

 States Government has no jurisdiction over those waters. 

 The fisheries along the lines of the states belong to the states 

 themselves, and what protection you get you must get from state 

 authority. It is useless to waste your powder in an effort to 

 do something which cannot be effectual when it is done. The 

 effort was made by the menhaden fishermen in Congress to 

 have such a statute passed, because they thought if they had that 

 matter placed in the hands of the United States Government, 

 that protection would not protect, and they did it to get rid of the 

 enforcement of protection by the State governments. A gentle- 

 man from Massachusetts, a lawyer, took great pains to present 

 the matter, and the Massachusetts Connnission, at their own ex- 

 pense, before the C(^ngressional conmiittee, had long briefs on the 

 subject; so there is no doid^t about it at all. Whatever action 

 this body may take with reference to protection, let them take it in 

 the states, and participate in inter-state conventions, where you 

 can endeavor to get uniform enactments from the adjoining 

 States. You will waste your ammunition by trying to .get any 

 United States protection. They have no power to do it if they 

 undertook to do it. 



There is another thing in this connection which I had in mind 

 to say, while the discussion preceding the reading of this paper 

 was going on. (^ne of the things advocated was that the fisher- 

 men should impregnate the eggs of the fish on their boats and 

 scatter them in the water; and that was suggested by Brother Nev- 

 in and sanctioned by some of the others. I know that with many 

 men of experience and with many fish culturists it has been a 

 favored notion, and it was one I had at one time, but I had it 

 taken out of me by scientific authority — that is. that a very small 

 proportion of the eggs that were cast by fish naturally were fer- 



