Field. — Massachusetts Aleivife Fishery 149 



spring to the very doors of the poor people. In the small 

 streams, it is easily caught without expense, and has 

 been used in the past not only for food but for fertilizer 

 and has well paid. Within my recollection, in the Merri- 

 mac River, shad and alewives were used as fertilizer by 

 the farmers in the immediate neighborhood. Today 

 rarely does a single shad enter the river and the alewives 

 are very few. This has been brought about by pollution 

 in the manufacturing sections and by the large dams 

 upon the river. 



Alewives are, still used considerably for bait and are 

 a valuable asset. Twenty or thirty vessels come annually 

 to Edgartown, each taking forty thousand alewives for 

 bait. The value of the fishery to a town may in favor- 

 able seasons run as high as four or five thousand dollars. 

 The organized companies average about 15% profit on 

 the capital invested in addition to the fact that they 

 distribute a considerable amount of money in wages 

 among worthy people. 



The situation is made the more imperative for the 

 reason that the shad, which formerly came with the ale- 

 wife to these same streams, and which by identical 

 methods, conditions and causes have been practically 

 exterminated, by the wise, patient and effective methods 

 of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries have been re-established 

 in many streams, to the great economic advantage of 

 the nation. Common sense methods applied to the ale- 

 wife fishery will assist greatly in making possible again 

 an annual catch of shad in Massachusetts waters. But 

 after all, the greatest value of the alewife fishery is one 

 that is little considered by the average person, viz., the 

 value of the alewife as a food for the larger fish which 

 frequent the Massachusetts waters. The small alewife 

 in the fresh water ponds not only furnishes a source 

 of food to the bass, pickerel, and other fresh water fish, 

 but when it descends to the ocean it attracts to the 

 vicinity of the streams large quantities of bluefish, 

 squeteague, pollock, and other fish which prey upon both 

 the small alewife and the adult. We have lost sight of 



