ELEVENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 4I 
before the association. My apology for doing this is the in- 
formation contained, which we cannot afford to miss. He says. 
Boston, April tst, 1882. 
Mr. Blackford : 
DEAR S1R—This everlasting lobster question appears so inevitably 
that I thought I would write just one word to you instead of attempt- 
ing to bore the Association, and in a word say what I think about the 
matter now, as well as in the past. If my memory serves me, I made 
the statement before the Association at the first meeting which | at- 
tended, that we were doing more injury than we realized, and | think 
so still. And that each recurring year confirms and intensifies the 
truth of that assertion, and the seeming necessity for evading a wise 
law to keep up even a partial supply proves the wisdom of that law, 
and that we are making sacrifices of future good to gratify present 
demands. In using these small lobsters we are hypothecating our 
stock in trade and cutting off our future supply. The price that has 
been paid this year for those small lobsters shows to what straits we 
are already reduced, and using small ones this year to keep the price 
down only adds greatly to what the price will be next year, and so on, 
This of course is apparent to you, and I should not say anything about 
it except for the reason that I wish to keepthe matter alive and try to 
avert an evil so sure to come unless we can manage to have our law 
enforced. If lobsters have been worth, or rather if they would bring, 
twelve cents a pound this year in New York, it is because we have de- 
stroyed so much of our supply, and using small ones is a sure way to 
increase the price year by year. We are constantly in receipt of let- 
ters saying we cannot ship to you because we can sell everything in 
New York regardless of size, which, if true, is wrong. Not because 
it affects me personally, but because it affects the whole business, and 
brings about a state of things which good men and the combined wis- 
dom of such associations as the American Fish-Cultural Association 
are striving to prevent. 
I wish to put myself on record as advocating a just and wise law for 
the preservation of lobsters. I do not write this to have it appear to 
the Association, but hope you will see fit to mention the matter. 
S. M. JOHNSON. 
Mr. Birackrorp.—Mr. Johnson is greatly interested in the 
ten-and-a-half-inch lobster law, as the only way to preserve the 
lobster fisheries. Last year lobsters sold as high as twenty-five 
cents per pound at retail, and even higher. Small lobsters are 
