130 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



he would stake his reputation as a fisherman on that propo- 

 sition. When asked 1)y ]\lr. Sherman Hoar if mackerel did 

 not eat menhaden, he re})Iied that " a mackerel could eat a 

 menhaden al)out as avcU as a cow could eat a pig." 



But admitting, if you please, that the menhaden are the 

 food of the blue-fish, shall we then allow the menhaden 

 industry to be wiped out in order that a few gamesters 

 and line fishermen may have the opportunity of catching a 

 few thousand blue-fish, more or less, during the summer 

 months? 



A gentleman who stands high as an expert in this line, 

 but whose name I am not at liberty to use because of his 

 ofiicial position, said to me last winter that he had about 

 come to the conclusion that it would be a blessing to the 

 food-fish industry to have the menhaden removed from 

 our waters when they appear in such enormous schools. 

 " For," he said, " as these menhaden come in, they are fol- 

 lowed by the blue-fish ; when slaughter begins, the other food 

 fish taking to the woods, as it were." 



The History of Net-fishing. 



It is claimed that fishing by net and the newer methods 

 is not only exhausting the supply of fish but is destroying 

 the spawn ; but let us consider it in the light of history and 

 modern research. 



Fishing by net is as old as history. More than eighteen 

 hundred years ago, — 



"Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, 

 Simon, called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into 

 the sea ; for they were fishers. And he saith unto them. Follow 

 me, and I will make you fishers of men. And they straightway 

 left their nets and followed him. And going on fi'om thence, he 

 saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his 

 brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets ; 

 and he called them. And they immediately left the ship and their 

 father, and followed him." 





Isaiah speaks of the spreading of " nets on the water 

 and in Habakkuk, six hundred years before Christ, we find 



