108 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



themselves to cultivatiag and raising oysters, lobsters, frogs, eels, &c. 

 The so-called oyster-culture, with which is next intended systematic 

 preserving and capture, is a great business, without a parallel in any 

 country.* 



From what I have here communicated in extracts and brief summa- 

 ries it will presumably be evident that the American example contains 

 a stirring invitation also to Norway to develop her fresh-water fisheries, 

 which are now greatly neglected. 



LIFE O^ BOAED A FISHING-SCHOONEE AT SEA.— MACK- 

 EREL-CATCHING WITH THE PURSE-SEINE. 



After having waited some time for an opportunity to go to sea, to wit- 

 ness the business out there, I succeeded in getting a promise of a place 

 on board the schooner William Baker, Captain Pearce. It was an old 

 vessel, but a good sailer, and the captain was recommended to me as an 

 experienced, enlightened, and generous man, who would take much 

 interest in communicating to me all the information he could give. He 

 had carried on the herring-fishing at Labrador, halibut-fishing off the 

 west coast of Greenland, and was now determined to prosecute mackerel- 

 fishing in the sea north of Boston. 



Late on a jaiuy evening I was informed that the vessel was now ready 

 to sail, in Gloucester Harbor, and that I could come on board. Neither 

 the weather nor the vessel particularly invited one out in the dark, foggy 

 night. But after being shown a tolerably good bunk astern, where 

 besides myself four of the crew had quarters, I soon found myself adjusted 

 and anxious to get under sail. Early in the morning we cast loose and 

 the vessel hauled out into the channel. But the wind was still ; we 

 could make no headway. While we waited for the wind a portion of 

 the crew i:)assed away the time by taking a bath and swimming out in 

 the deep. Their invitation to me to swim a race with them I was in the 

 notion of accepting, when the signal was given to make sail and get 

 under way. All came on board, took off their swimming-clothes, put on 

 dry clothes, and caught hold at the anchor-breaking and later at thehaul- 

 ing-outsothat it was a pleasure to see them. The brutal execution of dis- 

 cipline, so often censured on American merchant-shii)s, did not exist on 

 board here. The whole crew were native Americans, active and experi- 

 enced fishermen. They associated with one another with good-will, eat- 

 ing at a table common to us all, and carried on their work with mutual 

 satisfaction. Neither beer nor whisky is found on board; but warm 



* In one of the last official reports to the United States G-ovemmeut is fonud printed 

 a fnll description of the oyster-industry in the United States. Here, according to the 

 older statements, the whole oyster-trade is estimated to amount to the sale of 

 4,000,000,000 oysters, worth about $69,250,000. To this may be added the profit of 

 other shellfisheries, and of the oyster-shell, which is burned into lime. 



