APPENDIX. 387 



of cartloads have I seen upset to form a heap of putrefaction, after- 

 wards to be spread on the soil, every fish composing which was good 

 and wholesome food for man, eaten fresh on the spot, or simply dried 

 for exportation or winter use. But Newfoundland is shamefully 

 prodigal of the great natural resources afforded to her. It is true 

 that the fish is dried and exported to the markets of Europe — and a 

 more delicious dried fish than the caplin does not exist ; but why this 

 shameful conversion of food into manure from sheer laziness ? Neither 

 does the caplin manure prove so very beneficial after all. Though 

 very efficacious for one year for grass and all root crops except 

 potatoes, it then requires renewal ; the land cannot do without the 

 stimulus, or it soon falls off. About five loads of earth are mixed 

 with one of caplin, which is bought at three to four shillings. The 

 fish, well covered, are allowed to decompose till October ; then mixed 

 and ploughed in the land either that fall or the ensuing spring. On 

 the other hand, the caplin requires little or no attention in drying to 

 become an article of food. A few hours in pickle, and a few more 

 exposed to the sun, on a stage or roof, or even on the ground, and 

 they may be packed loosely in a barrel, without salt, and headed up. 

 Though its range is too great, and its spawning grounds far too 

 extended to render extinction of the species possible, yet, in the 

 baiting places whence it is obtained for the use of the neighbouring 

 cod fisheries, it has been in many instances rendered exceedingly 

 scarce ; and its final total departure from these resorts must ensue 

 unless it is protected from being hauled before or in the act of 

 spawning, and for such a wasteful purpose as that of manuring the 

 land. The total absence of bait will at once ruin the fisheries, the 

 immediate effect of which must be the ruin, starvation, and abandon- 

 ment of their present residence on the part of thousands ; and to 

 such a state of affairs the Newfoundland fisheries, including its very 

 vitality as a colony, seem rapidly drifting. 



THE GASPEREAU. 



(Alosa tyrannus.) 



Another example of an important and interesting fish, affecting 

 the shores of Acadie as far north as the Miramichi river in New 

 Brunswick, is afforded by the Gaspereau, a true alosa allied to the 

 shad, which ascends all the streams and brooks of these provinces 

 to spawn in the parent lakes in the beginning of May, those with 



