ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING, 33 
Mr, Windross, of Green Bay, estimates that at Oak Orchard 
and Pensaukee the catch of whitefish has fallen off ninety per 
cent. since 1869. He lays the decrease in a great measure to the 
sawdust polluting the spawning beds, and in corroboration of 
his statements cites the following, which he himself has wit- 
nessed. In 1845, the whitefish came up the Oconto River as far 
as the falls, twenty miles, to spawn. With a small seine he 
took 1,200 half barrels, and could have taken a great many more 
if he could have used them. This was only at one locality, and 
they entered all the weirs in the same manner. Now, the river 
bottoms are one mass of sawdust, and it also extends far out in- 
to the bay, so that the sheltered shoals are so covered that the 
fish desert them. Sawdust bottom extends out two miles from 
shore about the mouth of the rivers. Mr. Windross thinks the 
whitefish spawn more around the island and on the east shore. 
Very few spawning on the shore from Suamico to Peshtigo 
Point. 
Of the tributaries of Green Bay near Menominee, Mr. Kum- 
lein writes: ‘From fifteen to thirty years ago the most profita- 
ble fishing grounds were in the Menominee River near its 
mouth. Here racks were constructed which caught the fish as 
they came down from spawning. On such racks as high as six 
hundred barrels of whitefish have been taken in one autumn on 
a single rack. 
Mr. Eveland says that not a whitefish has been caught in the 
river for the past twelve years. As soon as the sawdust began. 
polluting the river the whitefish abandoned it. It was no un- 
usual occurrence to take six hundred barrels of whitefish in a 
season, twenty years ago, on one of the Menominee River 
racks. 
Duluth, Minn., does not seem to have been much of a fishing 
point until recently. Now the industry is assuming much 
greater proportions than in 1879. The town itself is only a few 
years old. (Statement of Ludwig Kumlein, June, 1880). 
Of Baytield, Wisconsin, Mr. Kumlein says: ‘ The total num- 
ber of men employed in 1879 was one hundred and thirty. ‘In 
1880 there were over two hundred. Pounds have been fished 
here for about twelve years. We could not learn that the de- 
