AMERICAN FISHERIES SOCIETY. 49 



THE FISH AND FISHERIES OF MARYLAND. 



BY A. F. GEORGE. 



No other State in the Union, in propoi'tion to its area, has a 

 greater coast line than Maryland. From a bulletin of the 

 United States roniniission published in 1S9-4 we find that the 

 States of New York, reunsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, New 

 Jersey and Maryland have an area of 150.(^)5 scpiare miles of 

 which T.O.'Jo sijuare miles is water. Maryland, with one ex- 

 ception, the smallest of these States, has the largest water area 

 of any mentioned — about 20 per cent of the entire surface of 

 the State being water. New York has 1.550 square miles; 

 Delaware, 90 square miles; New Jersey, 360 scjuare miles; 

 Pennsylvania, 230 square miles; Virginia, 2,325 S(]uare miles, 

 and Maryland, 2.359 square miles. Other unassigned waters in 

 Lower New Y^ork, Delaware and Earitan Bays, 720 square 

 miles. The Chesai)eake Bay, extending into the State for a 

 distance of 120 miles, is from four to twenty miles wide and 

 covers an area of 970 square miles. If we include its tribu- 

 taries up to tide water we have an area of 2,359 square miles 

 within the State. Then to this we add the inland rivers and 

 mountain streams and we are not surprised to find the fish 

 industry of Maryland to be one of the greatest in the country, 

 occupying, as it does, a place in the front among the States 

 engaged in the fishery industry. Nor are we surprised when 

 the United States Fish Commission tell us that the fisheries of 

 ^larylaud give employment to more than 41,000 ])ersons, with 

 an invested capital in 1890 of |7,649,904, having the largest 

 fleet of vessels engaged in its fisheries and the most extensive 

 packing and canning houses, while its fishing produces, includ- 

 ing shell fish, were valued at |6,019,165. 



In each of eleven counties of the State there are more than 

 one thousand persons employed in this important industry, 

 Somerset county having t lie largest number engaged in fishing, 

 larger in fact than any other county in the T'nited States, with 

 the possible exception of Essex county, Mass. Of the 23 

 counties of the State, sixteen of them border on important 

 bodies of water — onlv one of which — Worcester — borders on 



