INLAND FISHERIES COMMISSIONERS' REPORT. 6 



furnishing one of the cheapest kinds of food for tlie masses, it will 

 become the dearest, as the extremely high prices that have ruled the 

 past season show. 



From information obtained from wholesale fish dealers of the prices 

 of the various kinds of food fishes natural to our waters, for the last 

 five years, it is apparent that the prices have been steadily advancing, 

 and the supply as steadily diminishing until the season of 1886 shows 

 higher prices for nearly all food fishes than was ever known before. 



The only remedy which suggests itself to us is a law preventing 

 menhaden fishing in the Bay or within three miles of the coast, and 

 for the shore fisheries a close time law which can be enforced (the 

 present law having been found, by previous experience, deficient in 

 this respect) should be enacted. Menhaden and other trap and net 

 fishing are, in the opinion of the Commissioners, largely the cause of 

 this scarcity of fish, and they are sustained in this belief by the 

 reports of Commissioners of other States. As an illustration we quote 

 from the report of the Commissioners of New Jersey, 1884-1885, 

 p. 8 : " The colonies of fishermen at Seabright and Galilee were loud 

 in their denunciation of the menhaden fishermen, and, as at Holly 

 Beach, threats were made of procuring cannon and firing u^iou the 

 marauding steamers. In speaking of this matter an old fisherman 

 said : ' There is no certainty about the fishing. The oil fishermen 

 destroy everything that comes in the compass of their immense nets 

 and spoil the fishing not only off shore, but in the bays and sounds 

 along the Jersey coast.' 



" They are always on the lookout, and at the first sight of a school 

 of fish making for an inlet or skirting along shore, they are out with 

 their boats, and in a twinkling the purse net is around the school, 

 and all, pursued and pursuers, big and little, menhaden, blue fish, 

 weak fish, drum fish, Spanish mackerel and all, are gathered in, to be 

 ground into pulp and pressed for oil and manure, that a few rich 

 monopolists may grow richer at the expense of the thousands who 

 depend upon fishing for their bare existence. This thing is all wrong 

 and should be stopped ; it is crippling a great and vital industry and 



