NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 347 



persistent artificial hatching and planting of fish, would result beneficially to the 

 fishing interests, both sporting and commercial. The results in the Delaware River 

 prove this beyond the possibility of dispute. This being the case, other things being 

 equal, there is no question of the propriety of forbidding the use of any device which 

 will in any manner tend to depopulate the streams. Fish like the shad, herring, and 

 striped bass are of far greater consequence than eels and suckers. Unfortunately, 

 "other things" are not equal. The element that exclaims against the severity of the 

 laws and demands the right to employ devices to catch eels, suckers, and commoner 

 food-fishes, is strong enough in Pennsylvania and in other States to check the 

 efficiency of the fish commissions and in some instances to shape vicious legislation. 



After some years' thought on the subject and as a result of investigating the 

 demands of the commercial fishing interests and of personal struggles to secure the 

 passage through the Pennsylvania legislatures of efficient fish -protective laws or 

 the defeat of bad ones, I have about come to the conclusion that true fish protective 

 work, as advocated and attempted to be carried on by fish commissions, is in advance 

 of the times. If I am correct in this assumption, it then becomes not out of place to 

 consider whether or not it is expedient to yield something to the present demands 

 of the commercial fishermen, even though by so doing their interests are not truly 

 served, and wait for time and education to bring about a better state of affairs. 

 I am inclined to believe that the commissions can accomplish more in the long run if 

 they adopt this course. The pulling of the commercial fishermen one way and the fish 

 commissions another is not calculated to advance the cause of fish culture. 



I think Professor Baird advanced the idea that it is better to so increase the 

 supply of fishes by artificial propagation that protective laws should not be necessary; 

 that it is cheaper to make fish so abundant that the fisheries need not be iestricted 

 than to spend large sums of money in preventing people from fishing. Theoretically, 

 this is an ideal proposition, but, unfortunately, under existing conditions it does not 

 and can not work. If State legislatures would appropriate money enough to carry 

 on the work of artificial fish propagation to an extent eight or ten times what is now 

 done the experiment might be worth trying, but anyone who has attempted to get a 

 moderate appropriation through the legislature knows how hopeless such an effort is. 

 The tendency of those who control legislatures is rather to interject politics into the 

 commission than to assist them to advance the cause of fish culture. Under these 

 circumstances it is necessary to have fish protective laws ; but to what extent in order 

 to produce the best present results for fish-culture? 



It may be considered heresy to surrender any part of a principle for the sake of 

 expediency, but when fighting for a great object it seems to me that the greatest 

 advances are made by adopting a give-and-take policy, to gain and retain the regard 

 and respect of the other side, and to take what can be got from time to. time with a 

 feeling that it is a step toward the final objective point. As matters now are, I can 

 not see that the fish commissions have advanced much, if any, in popular estimation 

 in the last four or five years. On the contrary, it appears, in some States at least, 

 that they have had as much as they could do to hold their own. In Pennsylvania, as 

 I have already noted, the legislature adjourned without making any appropriation for 

 fish-cultural work during the next two years ; and out of the popular subscriptions, 

 amounting to some $15,000, which have been made to supply this neglect or oversight, 

 only $1,000 came from the commercial fishery interests, and that from Lake Erie. In 



