THE POUND NET FISHERIES OF THE ATLANTIC STATES. 601 



"All the edible varieties of fish taken iu our weirs find a ready market in New York, where 

 they are sent, packed in ice, every day. The weirs are visited every tide, and all of value brought 

 to the shore, while the 'trash' is thrown outside, to be carried off by the next tide." 



DISTRIBUTION OP THE CATCH. Most of the pounds on the north shore are in direct commu- 

 nication with the markets by rail. The Cape Cod branch of the Old Colony line threads its way 

 along the entire cape from Sandwich to Provincetown, and during the height of the fishing season 

 special trains are frequently run in the interests of the fisheries. The favorite market is Boston, 

 as being nearest, but great quantities of fish are seiit to New York and Philadelphia, and occasion- 

 ally as far south as Baltimore. 



The mass of the products is shipped fresh, packed in ice. Almost all the weir companies are 

 in the habit of buying boards cut in suitable lengths for shipping-boxes, the latter being put 

 together as fast as they are needed. The weight of a full box ready for shipment is about 300 

 pounds. About the packing-houses of the more important weir companies, such as Philip Smith's, 

 at Eastham, one sees great piles of these boards, which give the premises the appearance of small 

 lumber-yards. 



THE WEIR COMPANIES. The business organization of the north-shorn weir companies is not 

 complicated. Usually four or five men own the weir, two or three of whom act as fishermen and 

 one as bookkeeper. In the larger companies, however, the number of stockholders is often not 

 less than ten or twelve, and the majority do not take an active part in the real work of the com-' 

 pany, but simply invest their money here as they would in any other enterprise. The stock fre- 

 quently amounts to several thousand dollars, and covers the cost of the weir, ice-houses, horses 

 and carts, boats, tools, boxes, and other necessary apparatus and accessories of the business. In 

 favorable years the investment is a profitable one. The more impecunious fishermen look with 

 envy upon the wealthy weir-owners, and many regard them as at once the destroyers of their 

 financial prosperity and of the fishes from which it might bo derived. The Nobscussett Weir 

 Company of Dennis, in 1872, declared a dividend of 20 per cent.* The interest on the capital is 

 usually not less than 10 per cent. 



Nearly every company has an agent at the markets, who sells the fish and forwards the money 

 obtained to the bookkeeper, after deducting his commission. The agents have almost unlimited 

 powers iu many cases, and seem to be implicitly trusted by the fishermen. 



The running expenses of the companies are made up of items for packing-boxes, ice, trans- 

 portation, commission fees, and for repairs on the weirs. The last is an important item, for it 

 frequently happens that the weirs are kept in the water too late in the fall, and, encountering the 

 violence of an autumnal gale, are torn to pieces and thrown upon the shore. 



(> TRAP FISBING ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CAPE COD AND IN VINEYARD SOUND. 



LOCATION OF THE POUNDS. On the shores of Vineyard Sound we find quite a different 

 pound fishery from that existing on the north side of the cape. The pound-nets here employed 

 are "pounds," properly so called, being constructed entirely of netting. The huge seas which roll 

 through the sound in stormy weather would make quick work of the destruction of lath pound- 

 nets if the fishermen were foolish enough to attempt to employ them. The ordinary form of 

 "heart-seine" is the net most employed,! but at Waquoit and some other places "square pounds," 



'See Provincetown Advertiser, January 10, 1872. 



tSee section on APPARATUS for description of these pounds. 



