AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION 



borough and Province of Nova Scotia, collector of customs, make oath 

 aud says as follows : 



1. I have been acquainted with the fisheries on our coasts for the 

 past twenty-four years, during twenty-one years of which I wan en- 

 gaged in the fishing business, aud for the past four years I have been 

 collector of customs at this port. 



2. During the Reciprocity Treaty I have known as high as eight hun- 

 dred sail of American mackerel and codtishennen go in the Gulf of 

 Saint Lawrence in one season. Of late years about half that number. 

 For the last two years there have been about three hundred sail each 

 year, including cod, mackerel, and herring. These vessels average 

 about fourteen men each. They fish all around the shores of the Gulf 

 of Saint Lawrence. During the Reciprocity Treaty the mackerelerg 

 averaged about eight hundred barrels per vessel each season ; of late 

 years only about half that quantity. I have known eighteen hundred 

 quintals to be landed in one year by an American cod-tishing vessel. 

 The average catch of codfish I estimate to be about nine hundred quiu 

 tals per vessel each season. 



3. The Americans catch the codfish with trawls, and the mackerel 

 with seines, and with hook and line. 



4. I consider that the fishery around our coasts is much injured by 

 the Americans throwing overboard offal aud garbage. I have b-eu in- 

 formed on the best of authority that the codtishiug at Biiuquereau has 

 within the last two or three years been totally destroyed by this prac- 

 tice. On the Grand Bank, as I have been informed, the tishermeu 

 sometimes draw their trawls through "gurry" (that is the entrails and 

 refuse parts of codfish) and bring it up on their lines. Wherever this 

 practice is carried on, the fishermen say that the fish are driven away. 



5. I have understood American fishermen to say that the greater 

 part of the mackerel are caught within the three-mile limit, aud at the 

 present day a greater portion of the mackerel than formerly is caught 

 inshore. 



6. The value of the inshore fishery, so far as the mackerel and herring 

 are concerned, is of much greater value than that outside. 



7. The inshore boat fishery is much injured by the Americans running 

 IB among the boats and throwing bait in larger quantities and of better 

 quality than our fishermen, and by this means enticing away the tish 

 away 'from the boats. The schooner Alice, Oapt H. B.Joyce, took 

 one hundred and twenty " wash barrels" of mackerel on Sunday, the 

 22d of July last, close inshore. 



8. The American fishermen are beginning to use purse seines on our 

 coasts extensively during the last two or three years. These seines are 

 very injurious to'the fishery, as they uselessly destroy great quantities 

 of herring and small mackerel, which are thrown away. They f Iso tend 

 to break up the schools of mackerel and drive them away. The Ameri- 

 can codfishermen generally buy herring and mackerel from our fisher- 

 men for bait, aud catch squid for the same purpose themselves. 



9. Halibut are caught to some extent by American fishermen in our 

 waters, close inshore. 



10. The mackerel caught of late years in Canadian waters are larp 

 than those caught in United States waters, but being generally Ion 

 in pickle than the American mackerel, do not bring so high ajn 

 when put in the market. 



11. The principal feeding and breeding places of the marker 

 around the Magdalen Islands and Prince Edward Island and i 



of Chaleur, and in all cases inshore. 



