102 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



to such considerable amounts as will endure the comparison. Norway 

 has so many famous fish-streams and rivers, that one should have in 

 them an invitation to the attempt, especially since one has so practical 

 and satisfactory an example to follow as the Americans present. But 

 as matters now are the good waters yield only indifferently well to a 

 rational fishery ; one sees the profits diminish and the cost of carrying- 

 on an antiquated fishery increase, the less the occasion for old methods 

 becomes. * 



IX. 



HATCHING YOUNG FISHES FOR THE SAKE OF THE FISH- 

 ERIES. 



As in most other countries where the fishery is a greater industry, 

 some persons also in the United States have sometimes complained that 

 the fishing is falling off ; and as elsewhere so here one has for some time 

 heard complaints of uncertainty as to where the cause was to be sought 

 for. Some were of the opinion that it was over-fishing or with too many 

 implements ; others were just as sure that the destructive quality of 

 certain appliances was the cause. That the fish were scared away by 

 the noise of steamers, cannonading, or by the bad smeU of decayed 

 offal from manufactories, I have, however, not seen advanced. 



The question of the decrease of the number of fishes on the coast 

 arising in earnest in the years 18G0 to 1870, was, in the spring of 1871, 

 intrusted to Prof. Spencer F. Baird to investigate the matter. He re- 

 ceived a commission to learn how far the fishing on the coast, as well 

 as in the fresh waters, was diminished ; what cause had occasioned the 

 decrease, and what expedients in the form of law and otherwise ought 

 to be employed to furnish the fishing-grounds with a new supply of fish, 

 and in other ways make fish diet cheaper for the people. The professor 

 immediately set his hand to the work. With the assistance of a number 

 of practical men and men of scientific acquirements he begun investi- 

 gations of the temperature of the water at different depths, its vary- 

 ing transparency, its chemical composition, the infiuence of currents in 

 the depths and at the surface, food-supply for the edible fishes — in short, 

 examinations of everything on which the success of tlie fisheries must 

 depend. This was the first year; the next year saw a rapid advance, and 

 Professor Baird associated then with himself a corps of thiity-seven s[)e- 

 ciahsts, more than half of whom were professors, teachers, and stiuleuts 

 in zoology and natural history, the rest being fishery inspectors and 

 similar functionaries from eight different States and from British America j 

 so great was the interest with which they participated in the investiga- 

 tions. A fund was established for the propagation of one or another sj^e- 

 cial kind of fish, as, for exami)le, the salmon from the Atlantic coast; and 

 for the people at large, who ought to become interested in the mysteries 



