942 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



doubt whether there would be enough parent fish to supply the required 

 amount of eggs, I detailed a number of men to go down the river below 

 the fishing-grounds and drive the salmon out of the holes and off the 

 rapids, where they had collected, with the hope that they would ascend 

 the river to the seiuing-grounds and increase the supply of spawning- 

 fish. The ruse was very successful, and every day's work at scaring out 

 the salmon below resulted in a very perceptible increase of spawners at 

 the fishing-ground. This led to the idea that it would a desirable thing 

 to clear a second fishing-ground below the present one, and to work the 

 new one in connection with the old one, the effect of which would be to 

 cause the fish to collect on one ground while the fishing was going on 

 at the other, which would of course very much facilitate the capturing 

 of the parent salmon. This idea presented itself to me with so much 

 force and so favorably that I immediately set at work to carry it into 

 execution. The place selected as the most favorable for the purpose 

 was the first large hole below the old fishing-ground, and about eighty 

 rods distant from it. I put five or six men upon the job of clearing this 

 ground with a Spanish windlass and two cables of inch and f -inch rope 

 each ; but so ponderous and obstinate were the snags and logs which 

 had to be removed, that, after a week's work, almost the only results 

 were two parted cables and a half a dozen swollen heads and bruised 

 limbs, the eft'ect of accidents in working this powerful windlass against 

 so much resistance. This undertaking, however, was not abandoned, 

 and before the fishery was closed for the season the new fishing-ground 

 was tolerably well cleared, and in a condition, I think, to be safely swept 

 with the seine next spring. This labor, although it has cost severe and 

 dangerous exertion and a good donl of money, will, I hope, be worth in 

 future seasons all it has cost. 



The eggs having been secured, the next thing was to find help to take 

 care of them. In the northern Atlantic States, where the salmon eggs 

 are two or three months maturing for shipment, as at the Penobscot 

 River station in Maine, it is not such a great labor to look after the 

 eggs and pick out the dead ones ; but in California, where the whole 

 year's supply, say seven or eight millions, mature in less than twenty 

 days, it is a work that requires a great deal of attention and a great 

 many hands. The best help for doing this I have found to be the more 

 careful class of Indian women. These women, accustomed to patient 

 and monotonous labor, are unusually adapted to the work and give ex- 

 cellent satisfaction. Many, especially the younger and more frivolous 

 ones, I have found it necessary to discharge, but there are some who 

 work faithfully and patiently at it, whose work could not be surpassed. 

 The patient habits which their native education has given them, together 

 with their dexterity and delicacy of touch, especially fit them for this, 

 kind of labor. 



