1905 DEPARTMENT OF FISHERIES. 13 



tions, — than would be required if the control were vested in the Dominion 

 Government. Every possible step for a speedy conference should be 

 taken. The business interests of the great lakes may be valued at 

 several millions of dollars annually; but what is of vastly greater 

 importance, this valuable source of food supply is steadily and rapidly 

 declining. Improved fishing apparatus is being introduced, more power- 

 ful tugs are being employed, gas engines are being installed in sail- 

 boats which multiply their effectiveness, the fishermen are acquiring greater 

 skill in setting their nets and better knowledge of the habits of fish, — all 

 with a view to increasing the returns to the fishermen. To meet this increased 

 attack, radical measures must at once be adopted — artificial propagation 

 must be increased, the taking of gravid and immature fish must be stopped, 

 a size limit must be specified, and a close season during which no fishing 

 of any kind is to be carried on must be established, or the lakes will be 

 depleted beyond restitution. 



It has recently been suggested that as an important step towards restitu- 

 tion, lake trout should be permitted to attain a weight of eight pounds before 

 being taken. But one can hardly imagine anything that would be more 

 fruitful of disaster to the fisheries than that such a thing should happen. 

 Xo fish is more voracious, and none more destructive of other fish, than the 

 lake trout. A whitefish of two pounds in weight would make a mere luncheon 

 for an eight pound trout, and he would require half a dozen ordinary sized 

 pickerel or herring to appease his appetite. 



Supplying the Home Market. 



The circular letter which in 1904 was addressed to every licensed fisher- 

 man in the Province notifying him that he must make arrangements for 

 supplying the local demand for fish does not appear to have received that 

 attention and respect which was hoped and expected, if one can judge by 

 the complaints which have been raised in almost every part of the Province 

 that it is impossible to obtain fish, and the Department is now urged to take 

 such action as will compel the fishermen to recognize the home market as 

 entitled to consideration before a foreign market is supplied, even to the 

 extent of taking steps to prohibit the exportation of fish to the United States. 

 A survey of the Province with its increasing population would lead one to 

 believe that a home market could be obtained for a very considerable por- 

 tion, if not all, of the catch if a systematic and earnest effort were made 

 to establish such a market. But the fishermen are not usually magnani- 

 mously inclined, and are not influenced by patriotic or sentimental consider- 

 ations, and particularly when a change of conditions may entail upon them 

 extra labor and expense as well as possible loss. They are now able to dis- 

 pose of their whole catch for cash, and at prices higher perhaps than could 

 be obtained in the home market, on delivery of the same at the express 

 office, and they will not adopt other and less convenient and perhaps less 

 profitable methods of doing business unless obliged to do so. Whether it 

 is a libel upon the fish dealers and pedlars of the Province or not, we are 

 unable to say, but the replies of the fishermen to the letter sent to them 

 would indicate that there are a good many dishonest and unbusiness-like 

 men amongst the dealers and buyers. The fishermen state that it would be 

 impossible to sell in the home market the coarse fish (of which 1,939,600 

 pounds were taken this year), and that in order to sell them in the American 

 market they must be accompanied by the better kinds. But the fishermen 

 also say that they are prepared and always have been prepared to supply 

 the home market when reasonable notice is given, and that if applicants 



