552 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



OPEN-AIR SALMON-REARING TROUGHS. 



THESE TROUGHS ARE USED AT THE CRAIG BROOK (MAINE) HATCHERY FOR REARING ATLANTIC 



AND LANDLOCKED SALMON. 



inoffensive fishes of our seaboards, 

 coast rivers, and interior waters, 

 were considered not only valueless, but 

 nuisances, and whenever they became 

 entangled in the fishermen's nets were 

 mortally injured and thrown back into 

 the water. According to the statements 

 of Dr. Hugh M. Smith, United States 

 Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 

 the shore of the Potomac River in the 

 vicinity of Mt. Vernon was often 

 strewn with their decomposing car- 

 casses, and the same object lesson was 

 witnessed generally everywhere in the 

 country. Finally the fishermen awak- 

 ened to the fact that the eggs of the 

 sturgeons had value as caviar and that 

 their flesh had value as food. Accord- 

 ing to Dr. Smith's story, then followed 

 the most reckless, senseless fishing im- 

 aginable, and in a comparatively few 

 years the best and most productive 

 waters were depleted, and what should 

 have been made a permanent fishery of 

 great profit was destroyed. Even after 

 the great value of the sturgeons was 



appreciated, no adequate steps were 

 taken by the responsible authorities or 

 insisted on by the fishermen, and the 

 fish-eating public remained callous. 



For a long time after the failure in 

 the fishery was apparent the immature 

 and unmarketable fish caught in seines, 

 gill nets, and pound nets received no 

 protection whatever in most waters, and 

 were ruthlessly destroyed as nuisances, 

 the decline thus being doubly accel- 

 erated. 



On the Atlantic Coast the catch of 

 the sturgeon fell from 7,000,000 pounds 

 to less than 1,000,000 pounds in fifteen 

 years ; on the Pacific the same meteoric 

 history was enacted, a catch of over 

 3,000,000 pounds annually in the early 

 nineties being followed by a few hun- 

 dred thousand pounds in later years of 

 the same decade, with no improvement 

 since that time ; while on the Great 

 Lakes the yield declined more than 90 

 per cent in eighteen years. In the 

 American waters of the Lake of the 

 Woods, one of the most recent grounds 



