CHAPTER XI 



INSHORE FISHERIES THE HERRING FAMILY 



The fisheries of the herring family most common to the 

 New England coast are the common herring, the shad, the 

 alewife, and the menhaden. Other species of these occur, 

 as the branch herring, the glut herring, and the hickory 

 shad or tailor herring; but for our purpose it will be suf- 

 ficient to consider the more common kinds. The herring 

 family is a fish of great importance commercially. This 

 value is due to the wide range of the fish, the great abun- 

 dance of the supply, the small amount of capital neces- 

 sary for catching the fish, and to the great variety of 

 food values and commercial purposes for which it is used. 

 It has been for ages the poor man's food. For centuries 

 the people of Europe have drawn immense quantities of 

 the fish from the sea with no apparent diminution of the 

 supply. As food for man it is used fresh, pickled, smoked 

 and canned, being labeled as sardines, mackerel, and trout; 

 it is frozen to be used as bait on the deep-sea banks making 

 possible the prosperity of the bank fishery of our country ; 

 thousands of tons of fertilizer have been used in restoring 

 worn-out farm lands; and millions of gallons of oil have 

 been used by painters as the basis of their paints. 



The different species of the fish are found on the banks 

 in immense schools; others frequent our bays and harbors, 

 entering into almost every water area along the Atlantic 

 seaboard as far north as Labrador ; still others ascend rivers 

 for hundreds of miles, bringing to the very doors of in- 

 land people the fresh products of the sea. Not only do the 



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