4 REPORT ON INLAND FISHERIES. 



To hatch and place the young salmon in the streams was not much 

 trouble, and small expense: the only thing else to he done was to re- 

 new the supply from year to year and watch for results, with all the 

 obstacles against them that it is possible to conceive of. 



This has been done, and we have to report that a good many salmon 

 have been taken in the past two years that we have record of, and, no 

 doubt, many more unreported. 



The largest weighed ten pounds, and was taken at the foot of the 

 falls, at Pawtucket, last June. Smaller ones were taken in the Paw- 

 tuxet, between the first dam and Pontiac, and a number near West- 

 erly, below the first dam, on the Pawcatuck; none larger than two 

 and one-half pounds. 



These facts prove conclusively that there is nothing in the impuri- 

 ties of the waters to prevent success. 



In spite of all obstacles, the ten-pound fish must have lived three or 

 four years and gone down to and back from the ocean at least once, 

 and with obstacles removed nothing seems to reason against a fair per 

 cent, of fish doing likewise. 



So that we think it fair grounds to assume that, with the abolish- 

 ment of pound-nets and the erection of fish ways over all dams, salmon 

 can be brought once more to be a Rhode Island fish with certainty. 



The Commissioners having worked out this problem to their own 

 satisfaction, and they hope to all fair minds, it remains for the people 

 to decide whether or no these things will be done. 



SHAD. 



Last year we put one hundred thousand young shad in the Black- 

 stone, Warren and Barrington rivers. We failed to get any for the 

 Pawtuxet on account of the falling of the water in the Connecticut, 

 which put a stop to the hatching; and we should have left the Pawca- 

 tuck out in the cold anyhow, on account of the very numerous heart- 

 seines, traps and pounds within four miles of the mouth of that river 

 at Westerly, at least thirty in number, most of them with a half-inch 

 mesh. It is a waste of time to try to do anything under such circum- 

 stances. In our own bay shad operations have been a success. 



