INTERIM REPOKT 55 



dl we have not operated for a year. We luit up a dam — a roller dam. Fifteen 

 ears ago, not 20, we erected a dam and we put in a tishway. We came here 18 years 



ago, and ran without a dam for two or three years. The high water covers the tishway. 



It is high just new (August 15). It is not a Hockin patent, but fish get up, as the 



dam is only four or five feet high. 



E. H. McGregor said the dam across Salmon river at Union Station, near Truro, 

 was 50 feet high. The first year it was erected the pool below was just black with sal- 

 mon, and now none are there to be dipped out. The former dam was washed away, and 

 this dam was buUt less than 10 years ago. There has never been a fishway. The river 

 has been destroyed as a salmon river by the dam and by extensive poaching, especially 

 below the dam, where the salmon are kept back. 



iliLTOX Crowe said he was a buyer of shad. Alost of those we get in June are 

 -;;tnt fish, and they don't go down till July, when the bay men take them, although 

 tiie bay fish seem to be a different fish. The bay men get the shad before they are 

 mature or ready to spawn. Out of 15 or 20 shad the buyers can pick out a bay shad, 

 because they are fatter, different shape, and they are a different flavour. When the 

 •water is high in the river shad cannot be caught. Three years ago I got more shad 

 than in 15 years before. 



Fourteenth Sitting. 



Folly Village, N,S., August 15, 190S. 



Professor Prince openeil the sitting with a short explanatory speech and he was 

 followed by Mr. S. F. Morrison, commissioner, and evidence was then taken. 



The Hon. C. X. Cummixgs, Folly Village, said that he was 75 years of age and 

 had all his life been acquainted with the shad fishery. All the local people used to go 

 out upon the flats and spear shad there, and carry the fish ashore. Then small short 

 nets began to be used. ilr. Thos. Corbett got a short net over 60 years ago and old 

 Mr. James Johnson, of Debert, got one, but Mr. Halliday, of Halifax, came to Economy 

 cove with six or eight boats and used longer nets and got immense catches. He had 

 buildings at Patty Hill's Cove. He used 15 or 16 bunches of net to a boat. The mesh 

 was il or 5 inches the same as we used for salmon. I can give to the commission my 

 catches of shad from 1864 to 1870, and we used 16 bunches of new nets — 3 bunches 

 being sixty fathoms: — 



1864 6,500 shad. 



1865 - 9,000 



1866 11,600 



1867 4,513 



1868 9,146 



1869 5,105 



1870 5,067 



If fishing were poor here, our men went across to Tenecape. The inside drift off 

 Walton was the best the men always found. 



These catches for each season were made in my boat by one fisherman, Jame* 

 Urquhart. We sold the shad fresh at 5 cents each. In 1866-7 we paid $12 or $13 per 

 barrel salted to be shipped to Philadelphia and Boston, the backbone being taken out 



