66 SUM) iisHi:i!y cd.vMia.sioy 



Truro and here, aud that is a low estimate, but now -$2,000 would cover it. I was 

 born alongside the fish and caught them and ate them. Shad seemed always plentiful, 

 we were always sure of a good catch, aud I never heard tell of failure formerly. With 

 one weir 500 to 5 or 6,000 were taken on a tide. I went down to a small weir with my 

 uncle in 1S78 and got 5,000 good shad. On. the tide fish seemed thick all over the bay. 

 In the season each of the boats would get 10,000 to 20,000 shad. Then they fell off 

 and most people got disgusted and went <iut of fishing, and to-day those in the busi- 

 ness are losing money. Why there were thirteen boats out of our brook then and now 

 there is only about that number in the whole bay. There would be 100 boats making 

 good catches when I was a boy, 1,000 and 1,100 shad got bj' each boat in three hours 

 drift in the nest and sawdust was pouring down into that spot. So there must be 

 something more than sawdust and weirs to account for the decline. The whole trouble 

 is on the Stewiacke and Shubenacadie. Give us hatcheries and close down everybody. 

 If you closed down you'd soon fill the bay without hatcheries. We don't now see the 

 great schools of little shads two or three inches long, which we used to see in August. 

 Late in the season we'd lift 1,000 with the dip net, they had little black spots on the 

 side. 



Edward Fulton, Bass EmsR, said: — I do not think that any one could call this 

 Shad Commission a failure or as some have called it a farce. I felt that it was the- 

 very thing required. I want to say two or three things. The operations of our fishing 

 here can have had no detrimental effect because no spawn shad were ever caught. I 

 don't wish to cast any blame, but the ordinary fishing has not fished out the shad. 

 Now two years ago an Order in Council was passed to stop fishing for three years as 

 a result of much careful thought, but by some people's work it was upset.. A few 

 people would have lost a little but there would have been a tenfold return in a few 

 years. A few people not representative had too much influence in reversing the law 

 made wisely. Sawdust did not kill out the fish as there was ten times more of it when 

 there were lots of fish. On both sides of each stream there were two or three mills and 

 none were careful of the sawdust. Here at Bass river it is used for fuel. 



The decline of the shad is serious in many ways. Consumers of fish suffer loss 

 now. Formerly no charge would be made for a shad on the shore they were so com- 

 mon. But fish generaOy has advanced 200 or 400 per cent and the price of shad has 

 gone up three or four times while salmon is four or five times its old price. Every 

 family had a barrel or half a barrel of shad to see them through the winter. This 

 famine of shad has added greatly to the housekeeper's expenditure. There is no 

 mystery about it. Some i>eople think it a mystery, but we have been burning the 

 candle at both ends as Commissioner Morrison said aud it is "burnt out. You see the 

 date the Shubenacadie men found out how to fish shad, and from that rate, within a 

 limited number of years, the decline began. This bay area is the home of the shad. 

 With planting and with protection here they should be in plenty. If the shad be res- 

 tored how to prevent a recurrence of the scarcity will be the question. The matter 

 should be treated as a public domain, and regulation and license should be enforced. 

 No man should have ten or twelve boats in the fishery just because he has money, but 

 the poor man with small means to buy his smaller gear should not be crowded out. Just 

 as no one can go and cut timber on Crown lands, so that a wealthy man can't slash 

 down all the timber. Public domains like the bay flats should be guarded in the in- 

 terest of the public. Forty years ago big fishing began and now it is so played out 

 that at Economy there is not one shad boat. The rivers have been overfished and the 

 natural supply cut off. To the deaJer the decline made gTCat havoc with his business, 

 it was a calamity in our financial affairs on this shore. We can hope for nothing un- 

 less there is an 'entire cessation of the destruction of fish and after that the proper re- 

 gulation of the annual catch. Though I never fished in my life my grandfather fished 

 shad but it is the concern of everybody. A radical measure only will work any real 

 good. The loss to a good many by closure will be a mere trifle, and the government might 



