1434 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



fonndland, round this island, Cape Breton, New Brunswick shores, and 

 up the St. Lawrence to Seven Islands Bay, aud the Labrador shore, 

 Newfoundland from Boone Bay to Cape Ray. 



2. That, at the present time and for five years past, I have been 

 engaged in fishing at New London Harbor, and there are about one hun- 

 dred and fifty boats engaged in fishing out of that harbor and round the 

 sand hills and beach, aud the number is increasing fast and has doubled 

 within the last year; and three years ago there were not more than 

 thirty boats where the hundred and fifty are now. The boats are now 

 larger, better built, and equipped, and, in fact, superior in every way to 

 what they were three years ago. I should say, from my own actual knowl- 

 edge as an owner and employer of boats, that the capital invested in the 

 boat fishing has increased from fifteen to twenty fold in New London 

 and neighborhood during the last three years. Where three years ago 

 I could sell one hundred bushels of salt for curing fish, I can now sell 

 five thousand bushels, and where I had five hundred dollars invested 

 then I have ten thousand invested now. Three years ago there was 

 only one fishing stage doing business on New London beach doing 

 business with three boats and now there are eleven stages doing busi- 

 ness ou the beach, giving employment to about fifty boats and about 

 two hundred and fifty men. 



3. That the causes of the increase in the boat-fishing is that men 

 found it paid, aud that they could make money easier iu that than in 

 any other way; it also gives employment to the men at home, as there 

 is a surplus population growing up who have no lands for farming, and 

 who are able to find remunerative employment in boat-fishing, while they 

 would not be able to get employment in other ways without leaving the 

 country. 



4. That the average crews of 1 he boats, taking one with another, are 

 about four men to each boat, clear of the stage and shore men. There 

 is generally one stageman employed for every boat. Besides these, 

 there are also coopers, cooks, aud clerks, and sometimes inspectors em- 

 ployed, the number of whom vary, aud it would be difficult to give an 

 estimate of their number, although they are a good number. 



5. That the boats, as a rule, catch about ten quintals of codfish before 

 the mackerel come, aud when the mackerel strike, the boats, taking 

 small and large together, catch, on an average, one hundred barrels of 

 mackerel each during the season, worth about $1,000. 



6. That nine-tenths of our mackerel are caught within one and one- 

 half miles from the shore, and I may say the whole of them are caught 

 within three miles of the shore. There may be an odd catch of mack- 

 erel got more than three miles from shore, but that does not often happen. 

 The greater part of the codfish caught by hand-line are caught at from 

 two to five miles from the shore, and all the codfish caught by the trawl 

 or set lines are caught within three miles from the shore. There are no 

 mackerel or codfish at all caught by the boats outside of the three-mile 

 limit that is, outside of a line drawn from points three miles off the 

 headlands ; while the herring are all caught close inshore, within two 

 milfs of the shore. 



7. That I have fished about five years in the bay, in schooners. I 

 fished in five British vessels iu the bay, aud in one American. I was 

 master of four of the British vessels, and I was master of the American 

 vessel after we cleared from Boston. An American had to clear her 

 out of Boston. 



8. That iu the British vessels 1 have taken, on an average, three 

 hundred barrels of mackerel each year. 



