360 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



a fertilizer factory ou Loug Point Beacb, two pounds south of Oyster Pond Point, and five in the 

 sound, between the last-named place and Rocky Point, lying to the west of Orient. There are 

 $6,000 invested in nets, and $12,000 in boats for fishing. There are no men here engaged in fishing 

 for either menhaden, mackerel, or halibut; all are pound-netters, here or elsewhere. The fishing- 

 is better than last year for all kinds of fish. A few Spanish mackerel (150) were taken. Both 

 bluefish and porgies have increased. 



The average cost of a pound-net is about $500. The pound proper requires 100 pounds of 

 twine, and the leader from 100 to 150 or even 250 pounds, according to length and the depth of the 

 water. 



The Atlantic and Virginia Fertilizing Company, on Long Beach Point, lost their factory by fire 

 last .winter. When running they employed forty men all the year round. They are rebuilding. 

 They buy fish-scrap from the oil factories and mix it with other materials, thus making an excellent 

 fertilizer. 



The catch last year was 300,000 pounds of fresh fish, 50 barrels of crabs, 100 barrels of lobsters, 

 800 bushels of oysters, 500 bushels of hard clams, and 200 bushels of soft clams. 



GARDINER'S ISLAND. Formerly ten pound-nets were fished here, but now only two remain. 

 No fishermen live here, and the catch is therefore included in the figures of other places. 



MONTAUK POINT. Here is Great Pond, a pond of fresh water containing 1,500 acres. It 

 sometimes empties into the bay, and the owner, Mr. Benson, has talked of making an opening with 

 a sluice-way, so as to render it brackish and make an oyster-pond of it. It contains neither yellow 

 perch (Percn americana), pike, nor pickerel. . W. S. Gardiner, of East Hampton, once rented its 

 fishing privileges at $100 per year. He caught white perch (Roccus americanus), a few striped bass 

 (Roccus Imeatus), eels, and one codfish; also some menhaden, tautog or blackflsh, mullet, weakfisli, 

 and flatfish. The white perch were the most abundant. He sounded the pond from Big Island 

 to the south end, and it showed a regular depth of 12 feet, except very near the shores. Oyster 

 Pond has yellow perch and oysters. 



FORT POND BAY AND NAPEAGUE. There are three pounds in Fort Pond Bay, and two in 

 Xapeague, but, being owned elsewhere, the catch is reported in the towns where the owners live. 

 Napeague Bay and Harbor are together called "Promised Land," and several menhaden factories 

 are located here. On the Atlantic side the great pound-net which it is proposed to build, with an 

 iron pier, referred to in general remarks on the east end, is to be located. 



SPRINGS. Here are forty professional and ninety semi-professional fishermen, equal to eighty- 

 five men, of whom thirty are married, making fully two hundred and twenty persons depeiuleut 

 upon the fisheries. There are $8,000 invested in nets and apparatus, and $32,000 in boats. The 

 aggregate for the boats is about 100 tons. During the fall and winter of 1879, 10,000 bushels of 

 scallops were taken in Three-Mile Harbor. Two men dug 800 bushels of soft clams last fall and 

 sold them at Watch Hill, Conn. Mr. Bennett, one of the interested parties, says that men from 

 Block Island and from Connecticut took from Three-Mile Harbor, about a mile from Springs, 4,000 

 bushels of soft clams last season, and that they do so every year. The entire catch was 8,000 

 bushels, of which fully half were shipped. One thousand bushels of hard clams were taken for 

 consumption in the vicinity. Of fresh fish 120,000 pounds were taken; of eels, 2,000 pounds; of 

 crabs, 100 barrels; of lobsters, GO barrels. Striped bass (Roccus lineatus) are taken in seines and 

 traps from October until the weather gets too cold. 



AMAGANSETT. Fifteen professional and thirty semi-professional fishermen live here; $20,000 

 ;\re invested in boats, and $5,000 in seines, traps, and fykes. Many of the farmers of the locality 

 set fykes, and they occasionally fish with seines for striped bass and other species on the Atlantic 



