this branch of State iiulustry witli vii^ur, while liei' waters are 

 yet comparatively houutifully su})plied. 



The record, of the results obtained in other countries, and 

 in those States which have bestowed a fostering care on their 

 fisheries, enables us to report that we can, at no great ex- 

 pense, make our rivers and bays^ even more productive than i 

 they ever have been, and the best food fishes more abundant 

 than when the earliest settlers of this country commenced 

 their destruction. 



The natural geographical advantages of the State of Mary- 

 land, are so great that no effort should be wanting to make 

 our waters, one-fifth the whole area, yield their utmost abund- 

 ance. The rivers of the more Southern States are year by 

 year becoming more and more depleted, and their unhappy 

 condition both pecuniarily and i)olitically renders it improb- 

 able that they will be able for many years to do anything 

 towards the restoration of their fisheries. The spring fishes 

 of the Chesapeake Bay, being the earliest in market, will 

 command the most remunerative prices, and the great railroad 

 facilities, and the improved means of transporting fresh fisli 

 to the interior, by the use of ice, and refrigerating cars, ren- 

 ders it impossible to so overstock the market, that the capture 

 of our best food fishes would be unremunerative. 



Co-OPERATION OF Ya., ON: THE PoTOMAC. 



Your Excellency appreciating the necessity for the co-opera- 

 tion of the State of Virginia, in any efibrts to be made for the 

 restoration of the fisheries of this most important and produc- 

 tive river, instructed one of your Commissioners to visit 

 Richmond, the General Assembly of ■ Virginia, being then in 

 session, making him the bearer of a letter to His Excellency 

 Governor Kemper, in which his attention was called to the 

 action taken by the Stateof Maryland,, for the increase of fishes, 

 and urging concurrent action by the State of Virginia, so far 

 as the Potomac was concerned. Your Commissioner w^as cor- 

 dially received by His Excellenc}', who expressed his hearty 

 desire for co-operation in the werk, and placed him in commu- 

 nication with the Committee "on the Chesapeake Bay and its 

 Tributaries" to whom the subject was referred. Your Com- 

 ndssioner was invited by the Chairman (General Taliaferro) to 



