[3] PROTECTION TO ATLANTIC FISHERIES. '227 



are at tlic head-waters of the rivers and we erect obstructious, siicli as 

 dains, and thus prevent them from reaching their spawning grounds, 

 the effect of such obstructions will be to exterminate the species in the 

 waters thus obstructed. They will continue to come into the stream 

 for several years; all that come in will be caught in time, and fail- 

 ing to reach their spawning grounds so ns to maintain the species by 

 rei)roduction, tlie river will be absolutely exhanstcnl. We have a very 

 ujarked illustration of this effect in the Connecticut Eiver. The natural 

 si)awiiing grounds of the salmon are above Hadley's Falls, on the main 

 river, and in the upper portion of the Farmington lliver. Before the 

 Iladley's Falls dam and the dams on the Farmington were erected the run 

 of salmon into the Conne(;ticut was as important as the run of sliad in 

 that river. Salmon, indeed, were as cheap an article of food as shad 

 in the valley of the Connecticut. The erection of the Iladley's Falls 

 dam and of the dams on the Farmington had tbe effect in the first 

 place of vastly increasing the (;atch of salmon at Hadley's Falls for 

 two or three years. Tlien it dropi)ed off very ra[)idly, and now no 

 salmon at all enter that river. 



Where, by reason of obstructions, the salmon fail to reach suitable 

 spawning grounds, the development of the eggs goes on until tliey pass 

 the period of maturity and spoil iu the ovaries, the female meanwhile 

 exhausting her energies in vain efforts to surmount the obstruction and 

 re:ich suitable spawning grounds. 



I have cited the case of the salmon fisheries of the Connecticut for 

 the reason that the natural spawning grounds of this species, being 

 entirely above the obstructions, the effect of the dams was to work 

 absolute extermination. But what is accomplished by a dam, is or may 

 be in a measure accomplished by exhaustive fishing. If this is ])ushed 

 to such an extent in any river as to take — and it may be — all the mature 

 salmon that enter this river, it needs but a few years to work absolute 

 extermination. If it is not carried to this extreme, but is i)nshed far 

 enough to prevent a sufficient number of the fish from reaching their 

 spawning grounds to maintain the loss by capture or natural casualties, 

 then the fishery will be impoverished year by year, and the depletion 

 will go on in increasing ratio; vso that, practically, although the salmon 

 may not be exterminated, the fisheries in that river will be <lestroyed 

 by being rendered unremunerative. 



In the case of the shad and alewife the same result will follow over- 

 fishing. As an illustration take the Chesapeake basin, into all the trib- 

 utaries of which there is each season a run of shad and herring. The 

 fish enter these streams iu February and early in ]\larch for the pur- 

 pose of spawning. Successive schools of them are i)assing up to their 

 spawning grounds from April on as late as July. The young fish that 

 are spawned remain in the rivers, feeding and growing until the cool 

 weather of the fall comes on. They then begin to drop down-stream, 

 and by the last of Xovember they have passed out into the bay, and 



