190 . United States of America. 



Next are the Middle States, employing in the coast fisheries 14,981 men, 1,210 vessels, 

 8,293 boats, with products to the amount of $8,676,579. 



Next are the Pacific States and Territories with 16,803 men, 56 vessels, 5,547 boats, and 

 products to the amount of $7,484,750. The fisheries of the Great Lakes employ 5,050 men, 

 62 vessels, and 1,594 boats, with products to the amount of $1,784,050. The Gulf States employ 

 5,131 men, 197 vessels, and 1,252 boats, yielding products to the value of $545,584. 



Forty-three distinct fisheries are recognised by American writers, each being carried on 

 in a special locality, and with methods peculiar to itself. Among the most important of these 

 are the oyster fishery, the off-shore cod fishery, the whale fishery, the fur-seal fishery, the 

 mackerel fishery, the menhaden fishery, the halibut fishery, the Antarctic seal and sea- 

 elephant fishery, the west-coast salmon fishery, the lobster, the shad and alewife fishery, the 

 swordfish fishery, and the clam fisheries. 



The ofi-shore fisheries are carried on chiefly by citizens of the New England and Middle 

 States, and are prosecuted on the great oceanic banks extending from Nantucket to Labrador, 

 and upon the ledges and shoals between these and the coast. 



The great Purse-seine fisheries for mackerel and menhaden are carried on north of 

 Cape Hatteras at distances from the shore varying from one mile to one hundred and fifty 

 miles. The fishing grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, formerly frequented by many 

 hundreds of American vessels, have been entirely abandoned since the introduction of the 

 Purse-seine, and in 1882 only one vessel visited those waters, returning with about 200 barrels 

 of mackerel. The oyster fishery is located for the most part between Cape Hatteras and Cape 

 Cod, chiefly in the great inland bays. In all the great rivers of the Atlantic coast are 

 fisheries for the anadromous shad and the two species of alewife. About the Keys of southern 

 Florida is an extensive sponge fishery, and on the shoals of the Gulf of Mexico the red snapper 

 and grouper fisheries are yearly increasing in value. The fur-seal fishery is chiefly located 

 upon the Pribylov Islands of Alaska. A small fleet of vessels yearly penetrates to the ice- 

 bound islands of the Antarctic for seal- skins and sea-elephant oil. The whaling fleet, with head- 

 quarters at New Bedford and San Francisco, in the main frequent the North Pacific, though a 

 number of smaller vessels, many of them from Provincetown, pursue the sperm whale in 

 tropical waters. The salmon fishery is seated chiefly upon the Columbia Kiver and its 

 tributaries, though other rivers in Oregon and California produce large quantities of salmon, 

 which is extensively " canned " and exported. The most valuable product of the Great-lake 

 fisheries is the whitefish. The swordfish fishery of Southern New England, though employing 

 but 40 vessels, and perhaps 160 men, produces 1,500,000 pounds' weight annually. 



The export of American fishery products is comparatively small owing to the fact that 

 the demand for such products for home consumption is really greater than the supply, and is 

 constantly on the increase. In 1880 the total value of exported fish products amounted to 

 $5,744,580 ; of which, according to custom-house records, England received $2,601,017. Of 

 the quantity sent to England $1,596,007 was in canned preparations, and $363,790 in fresh 

 oysters, the remainder being chiefly products of the whale fishery. In former years there 

 was an extensive export trade in dried cod with Spain and Portugal, but this is now entirely 

 abandoned. Large quantities of canned salmon are sent to China, Japan, and Australia. 



At present no subsidies are allowed to fishermen, except that the duties on imported 

 salt, used in the preparation of fish, are remitted ; this practice was begun in 1863, at which 

 time the old bounty law was repealed. 



The United States, with the intention of aiding its fishermen, has paid to Great Britain 

 the sum of $5,500,000 for the privilege of fishing in the British Provincial Waters from 1873 

 to 1885. 



Since 1871 the United States has appropriated over one million dollars to be used by the 

 United States Fish Commission in behalf of the fishermen and fish consumers, and under the 

 direction of the Commissioner, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, very important results have been accom- 

 plished. All the state governments with the exception of six have established state fish 

 commissions, and most of them have been liberally supported by grants of money. 



The undeveloped fishery resources are very great. Many of the fishes and invertebrates 

 which in Europe are highly valued by the poorer classes are never used here. Only about 



