Bullet . — Pennsylvania Fish Commission 147 



messenger, it might be well to state, accompanies the 

 fish from the time they are placed on the train in ship- 

 ping cans at the hatchery, until the last can of fish is de- 

 livered to the applicant, oftentimes making it necessary 

 for him to be on duty all night and part of the next day 

 without any sleep. Each applicant is requested to report 

 to the Department the condition of the fish when they are 

 received. In this way the Department is in possession of 

 much valuable information which assists it in its work. 



It has been difficult to keep men in the employ of the 

 Department owing to the inadequate salaries that the 

 Department is able to pay under the appropriations made 

 by the Legislature. As the men are trained by the De- 

 partment and become efficient they are sought for and 

 bought up by offers of a much higher salary than the 

 Department is able to pay. The result is that the De- 

 partment makes the man and some one else gets the 

 benefit of the training. 



What is true of the hatcheries is true of the field work. 

 Field work is really as important as the work at the 

 hatcheries. It means the gathering of the spawn from 

 the fish in the natural waters that would otherwise be 

 lost. The millions of eggs gathered at Erie would be 

 entirely wasted were it not for the efforts of the Penn- 

 sylvania Department of Fisheries in collecting them, 

 hatching them and planting the young fish in the lake. 

 This is shown by the fact that the supply of fish is kept 

 up and that the port of Erie, today, is the largest fresh 

 water fish market in the world, yet Pennsylvania has 

 only forty miles of shore line on the lake. The people 

 of Pennsylvania should be proud of this distinction as 

 it means much to the Commonwealth in the commercial 

 and business world. The amount of nets set every day 

 runs into hundreds of miles and the production of fish 

 last year was 9.205,767 pounds, valued at wholesale at 

 $393,700.48, or about 4i/ 2 cents per pound. These figures 

 convey forcibly the value of the fish business in Lake 

 Erie, where the city of Erie is only one of a number of 

 fishing ports. The value of the boats and tackle used 



