112 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



For Xo. Va with the lieads cut off is obtained $5.56 more than for com- 

 mon I's. For packing, barrels, and inspection, is estimated on the aver- 

 age $1.91 per barrel. 



The same schooners which jjiosecute mackerel-catching go partly also 

 into the herring-fishing ; the best fat-herring fishing begins in the mid- 

 dle of August and continues at oNewfoundland and Labrador until about 

 mid- winter. In the winter months are caught also large fat herring. 

 Alternating with this fishing the same vessels carry on in part cod-fish- 

 ing on the Great Btuiks, and halibut-fishmg there and off Greenland. 

 These fisheries I had not the opportunity to make myself more familiar 

 with, as it would have taken a long time to follow the vessels out on The 

 banks and see them. But with regard to the profit in general I can 

 state that it is about as in mackerel-fishing, with the difference, how- 

 ever, that the herring-fishing yields something less than $5,560 to $8,190 

 to a schooner for the season, while bank-fishing for cod and halibut 

 yields something more, namely, as much as $10,920 to $13,650. How- 

 ever, the halibut-fishing fluctuates greatly, it is said ; since it may some- 

 times yield a far greater profit, of which one has an illustration in this, 

 that a vessel has brought its owners about $27,300 profit in a year, and 

 that skippers have earned from $1,638 to $5,560 for their share. 



A description of the universal implement for the capture of mackerel, 

 menhaden, and herring, namely, the purse-seine, I have already sent to 

 the honorable department in a printed letter. Besides I have treated 

 of the purse-seine iji a couple of articles in the " Bergen Post" last sum- 

 mer, in which I gave an account of a trial trip with a Norwegian purse- 

 seine of hemp thread. This trial trip, at which I was present by re- 

 quest, after four days' sojourn at home on my return from Philadelphia, 

 was made from Stavanger and required 14 days' time in the beginning of 

 Jiune. The result arrived at was briefly this, that even a large, heavy 

 purse-seine of hemp thread may at a pinch be used for the capture of 

 herring, but hardly of mackerel. However, we saw only herring, but 

 not a single mackerel, which could hardly be expected either, since the 

 weather was cool and partly stormy near the coast as well as twenty 

 miles out in the North Sea. That a large purse-seine of about 200 fathoms 

 is not suitable arises from this, that it is cumbersome to handle ; the 

 thread alone in a hemp seine is about 50 per cent, heavier than in a cot- 

 ton seine, and the heavier the seine is, the more cork and lead must it 

 have ; from this it follows again, that heavier twine must be irsed ; one 

 gets also a far heavier implement, and for its management is required a 

 larger crew, which again involves a larger boat — in short, step by step 

 one departs from the chief qualifications for the purse-seine's cardinal 

 virtue, facility of management united with strength, by which its whole 

 cost as well as the expenses of working it are not so inconsiderably 

 greater at the same time that the profit in general must be diminished. 

 The fact that the purse-seine in question later in the summer caught 

 mackerel partly shows that it should not be entirely rejected. 



