Ainoicaii Fisheries Societi/ 1S7 



]i;u-kx'(l. not only in rcg-ard to tlio methods of packin*;-, but tlu' 

 matiTial used for the transportation of the egg's. 



Improper food lias caused a good deal of loss. Tnipure food 

 has been even a more aetive cause of loss of fish — and 1)y impure 

 food. I mean liver, for instance, which has been practically 

 siioiled or soured in some way. You may say that these things 

 can all be avoided, whicli is \ery true, and I hope tliey will l)e. 

 in the course of time. Accidents will happt'n in the very best of 

 families, and where food may be ol)tained one day. where service 

 has been reliable up to a certain point, and you find something" 

 has been sent which is not up to the standard. Imt which you 

 must use for want of something better — you will see that the 

 complication is not an easy one. 



Pollutiotis of the waters of various kinds, from the acids pro- 

 ceeding from wood alcohol factories and the sawdust from saw' 

 mills, have continued to give us more or less trouble. 



Another very practical difficulty arose near Tivoli, during 

 the present shad season. "We were counting upon a late take of 

 shad eggs near Tivoli, in a little channel, l)ut Avhen the men got 

 in there they found that someone had dumped cinders to such an 

 extent that the shad had deserted the channel, and they could 

 not pull the nets through it. 



We had another case near one of the stations. The owner of 

 some stf^ck. horses and slicei). allowed dead animals to be placed 

 in one of the streams, which we were expecting to use, and we 

 had a great deal of troul;)le ^ith that man, and we finally had 

 to apply even to the state health board, before we could compel 

 him to take his dead horses and sheep out of that stream. 



There have ])een great- difticulties in collecting eggs. Tast 

 fall, bad weather interfered very greatly indeed with egg collec- 

 tion, especially on some of the great lakes. We lost several cases 

 of whitefish eggs at one time through nolwdy's fault, but just 

 because the weather was so stormy that it Avas impossible to save 

 them. We have even had violence offered, in some cases, to the 

 men who w^ere engaged in taking eggs. On Long Island, a man 

 was assaulted while in the act of collecting smelt eggs near Cen- 

 ter Vovi. This does not often happen, though it has happened 

 to us in ('anandaigua, and I have been told by one of the mem- 

 bers that when his father first began the work of shad hatching 



