<liiring the wljole summer, but which of lato years 

 they uicnot pormitttul to «lu? The heads of these 

 sc'hules, (like the foremost of a flock of sheep,) 

 when stopped in their course, .are turned and 

 harried buck into deep water, or to the Banks 

 whence they came, and consequently the fish are 

 not to be found near the shore as in the olden 

 times when the hook and line only was used, and 

 when every industrious man could catch, during 

 the fishing season, from one to two hundred qtls. 

 for his- own hand. I myself have personally seen 

 these things. The same principle applies to Sal- 

 mon. There is ftot now one barrel taken to the 

 hundreds that were caught in the olden times, and 

 for the reason that the nets now stop the rivers and 

 brooks in such a manner that the Salmon are pre- 

 vented from going up them to deposit their spawn; 

 and should any leap the nets and enter those 

 rivers, they are pursued and taken from the holes 

 to which they resort for the purpose of spawning, 

 which does not take place before September. There- 

 fore, unless the Legislature deal with this impor- 

 tant subject, (which I have for many years past 

 been urging them to do,) by prohibiting the use of 

 seines and the improper fishing for Salmon, I ven- 

 ture to assert that we shall never again have f:ood 

 Cod or good Salmon fisheries upon the Newfound- 

 land coast. But it fortunately happens that, in 

 the Providence of nature, our fisheries are not 

 limited exclusively to Newfoundland. We have 

 had two successive ye.irs of good fishing on the 

 Labrador, and our aggregate catch is not less as a 

 whole, or barely less, (notwithstanding the partial 

 failure of the Newfoundland Cod and Salmon fish- 

 eries,) than in previous years. The Labrador Cod, 

 however, is not of the same value as that of New- 

 foundland. 



