AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 25 



and most advania^t'ous to the whole [icoiik' is tliat wliicli will 

 encourage and develop the industry, instead of closing it, and 

 instead of taxing the people to raise funds to enforce laws 

 depriving thousands of honest men of their occupation, bring- 

 ing deslitution into their homes, and keeping the food from the 

 general puhlic. why not appropriate that money to tlie estab- 

 lishment of the industry, thus increasing our natural resources 

 and adding materially to our ])ublic wealth? The water in 

 the lakes, rivers, and sea belongs to the whole people, and it 

 is the duty of the age that ste])S should be taken to maintain 

 and develop our fisheries which are now holding their own, 

 and to re-establish those which are now on the decline. 



Prudence reciuires that we should meet the foes and obviate 

 the dangers which threaten our food fishes, by turning all our 

 philosojihy. science and art into practical investigation. There 

 are men here in our midst who have added some very valuable 

 discoveries to fish cultural work, and have materially improved 

 upon methods formerly employed which were learned from 

 previous experimenters, and so there will be others who will 

 come on after us, and taking up the work where we drop it; 

 they will substitute in place of our very imperfect methods, 

 some mode of })rotection which, as the necessity will demand, 

 must insure better results. It is not my desire to present to 

 you any startling facts with which you are not familiar, but I 

 am impressed with the importance of protection, and instead 

 of trying to throw any light on the subject, I am endeavoring 

 to seek information by arousing a discussion on the question, 

 and thus be benefited, m.yself, and stimulated to renewed 

 thought, and perhaps, indirectly, be the means of doing some 

 good, by suggesting that at our next meeting some of our mem- 

 bers (or all of them if they feel so disposed), debate the ques- 

 tion of protection more particularly with reference to laws best 

 ada])ted and required for the sticcess of their particular line 

 of work. 



In this way, we could all be benefited. It was my intention 

 at first to com])are laws, making use of statistics,, by reviewing 

 the results following the various changes in so-called nrotec 

 tive legal measures regulating our fisheries, and after procur- 

 ing a number of old h:ws. and deducing some comparisons and 

 results, I concluded that the subject is entirely too lengthy and 

 too comprehensive to be taken up in such a light and discussed 

 at this meeting. To corroborate my views as to how ineflfec- 

 tual are the many laws relating to our fisheries, I have taken 

 the time to communicate with some of the chief officials of the 

 different State Fish Commissions and with interested private 

 parties who have repeatedly made ap])lications to have certain 

 ''fished out" streams restocked, and I find them almost unani- 

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