260 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



understand that tbe propagation of food-fishes is but in its infancy, and that it will 

 take some years to attain great results, and strict care is necessary to insure success; 

 but when the different species are established legal permission ought to be given for 

 fishing in different streams and for different fish. We are confident that when pelagic 

 sealing has become amenable to international laws the business will cease; and as 

 surely when salmon, cod, herring, mackerel, shad, and all other far-wandering fish are 

 protected by the same union of nations for their safety none but legalized fishing will 

 be attempted, and thus the continuous success of all such fisheries will be secured 

 and revenue for country and individual will grow proportionately. 



Justice and right grant that man is the owner of all inferior animals and that 

 for his food, clothing, and other necessities he has the unequivocal right to slaughter 

 either animals or fish sufficient to supply his needs, but there is something repulsively 

 cruel in the wholesale destruction of either one or the other for imaginary or artificial 

 requirements. It is against this particularly we would lend both pen and voice, for 

 truly nothing was created to be so ruthlessly demolished. That we have not discov- 

 ered the use of every living thing does not prove that aught was given life in vain. 

 Therefore let the Fish Commission raise its voice against the cruel destruction of any 

 living thing over which its prerogatives may reach, thus securing safety not only for 

 the wards of their hatcheries but for the food supply for them and other creatures. 



That the waters of the partially settled Northwest teem with the most desirable 

 food-fish does not insure their perpetuity against waste nor prove that they will not 

 dimmish in numbers when increasing population conjoins with the industries devoted 

 to canning, salting, or drying, even if the business should be operated with economy. 

 The swarming millions are the natural accumulation of centuries of almost uninter- 

 rupted reproduction, natives of the country catching only sufficient for their own 

 needs and for the comparatively small trade with the outside world. As the settlement 

 of the country increases there will be gradual diminution of numbers, however carefully 

 the fishing interests are guarded. But if the plan of systematic economy begins at 

 once, there will be no very disadvantageous falling off of the most valuable kinds. 



We have used the Northwest as an example of the plenitude of nature's food 

 supply only because the trend of business and commerce leads in that direction, but 

 we could as readily use the Northeast with its former millions of valuable denizens of 

 the bays and rivers and seacoast. Now the cod fisheries are disappointing, some- 

 times the mackerel and herring fail to appear in great numbers, and the fishing villages 

 suffer in proportion. Once, too, the great Chesapeake became choked at seasons 

 when many noble fish swarmed toward their breeding- grounds. It has been written 

 that bushel baskets were filled and sold for no more than one fine shad would cost 

 to-day. The stories of the abundance and cheapness of terrapin compare oddly with 

 the enormous prices to which they have risen, making an expensive luxury of what was 

 once a drug in the markets of Maryland. Bearing these authentic assertions in mind 

 it is safe to say that the Fish Commission lias not begun its work too soon unless the 

 people were willing to have the best of all fish become extinct, for neither shad nor 

 salmon, nor any other fish, could hold out against the enormous catches once permitted 

 on the Delaware and Chesapeake, as they are now on the Columbia and Willamette. 



The idea ought to be suggested that, though the interests of more than one or two 

 nations might make international unity relating to the safety of the seal from destruc- 

 tion very necessary, it could not well include the true fish within that jurisdiction. A 



