76 Tiveuty-ninth Antinal Meeting 



features of home meals, and we ought to keep the vakiation 

 down for the iienefit of the masses of people. And for all these 

 valuable food fish, like the shad, trout and bass, which our pro- 

 tective association, which I represent, is making efforts to have 

 good laws enacted to protect from being seined out and is what 

 we have been working for a great many years. Maryland occu- 

 pies a large section for cjuite a number of miles across the Sus- 

 quehanna River, and they allow fishing the entire year and they 

 keen the upper streams from l^eing filled, with the spawn of the 

 shad, and some other fish of that kind, but we cannot do any- 

 thing with their State laws. We aimed to get a good law. a 

 codified law, taking in all good features passed, but we found 

 that the enemies of the fish came in and thev had two bills by 

 which they intended to upset all the laws that had been in opera- 

 tion for fifteen years. Instead of passing our own law we had 

 to go up and fight their law — and I stayed there watching the 

 thing myself — a committee went up two days before and said 

 it was all right : but if I had not been there thev would have 

 passed two laws that would have killed all our legislation for 

 fifteen years. Our chairman got hold of both bills, away on 

 towards morning he put both bills in his pocket and went to 

 the hotel and went to sleep and didn't get awake until too late 

 to pass the inimical bills. That is the way we saved the good 

 legislation, and the main feature of one of those bills was allow- 

 ing fish netting for certain kinds of fish,' for eels rind things of 

 that kind, but we knew what it meant — cleaning out all the fish 

 they could. They were going to clean out for market and sale 

 all our streams with nets, and the state propagating them for 

 the angler, cannot maintain prolific streams. 



We had a system in Pennsylvania of having a certain num- 

 ber of wardens, say 15 or 20, to cover the whole state. Well, 

 about the time there would be some reported violation on the 

 Delaware he would be ofif somewhere else, but the last legislature 

 made this rule, and it was adopted, that anv infraction of 

 the fishing laws should I^e brought before a constable of 

 the individual place in the cmmtx', and we thought we had every- 



