No. 4.] THE HARVEST OF THE SEA. 121 



$1,500,000, were distributed. At Gloucester the receipts of 

 fish during 1891 were 93,817,795 pounds, mostly salt fish, 

 valued at $2,666,171. It is estimated that the fishing-ports 

 of Boston, Gloucester and Providence handle daily at least 

 300 tons of fresh and salt fish. 



According to the United States Fish Commissioners' Re- 

 port for 1888, the total value of the fish harvest, including 

 oysters, shell-fish, menhaden, and all other kinds used for 

 food, oil or fertilizers, was $11,000,000 in New England, 

 and $34,000,000 for the whole United States ; while there 

 were 6,000 vessels and 137,000 men engaged in reaping 

 the harvest. 



As an illustration of the harvest of the sea, Mr. Spencer 

 Walpole, for a long time one of Her Majesty's Fish In- 

 spectors of England, states that "in 1880 there were 

 130,000 tons of fish brought to the London market, while 

 in 1889 there were 193,000 tons, or over 500 tons daily, 

 which is equal in weight to a drove of 1,000 oxen." 



Whenever we get to talking about fish, whether caught 

 in the country brook or in the great sea, the figures are 

 always so fabulous that they pass beyond comprehension 

 and usually beyond belief ; but those which I have already 

 given you I have taken from oflicial sources, and, to prepare 

 you for future fish stories, I will state, at the outset, that I 

 shall always give my authority. 



History of the Use of Fish ox Land. 



The interest of the agriculturist in the fishing industry is 

 not, however, in the food fish of the sea, of which he con- 

 sumes comparatively little, but in the kinds of fish which 

 will furnish him with oil to be used in painting his buildings, 

 and with plant food by which he can restore the exhausted 

 fertility of his land, more or less of which has been poured 

 into the sea throui2:h the sewers of the great cities. 



The Indians first taught the Americans how to recover 

 from the sea the fertility which has been lost to it. Pro- 

 fessor Trumbull tells us that the Indian names of Brevoortia, 

 "menhaden" and " poghaden," mean "fertilizer," that which 

 manures ; and that the Indians were accustomed to employ 

 this species, with others of the herring tribe, mostly the 



