THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. ve | 
ufacturing city of Lowell. And Merry Mount, to-day the coun- 
try seat of John Quincy Adams, is a suburb of the metropolis of 
New England. The inhabitants no longer “ dunge their grounds 
with codd,” but are fain to buy that fish in the market at a round 
price per pound. 
The river fish whose protection has cost most law-making in 
the old commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the humble alewife. 
In contradiction of the proverb, “ mute asa fish,” this one may 
truly be said to have made a great deal of noise in the world. 
Like some men they are small and humble, but persistent and 
numerous. In the springtime the alewives stand in from the sea, 
and push up the smaller fresh-water streams, seeking ponds 
wherein to deposit their spawn. They come in great armies and 
insist on entering those ponds. Nothing less than a vertical 
wall six feet high will stop them. Amid the clatter of mill 
wheels, and in the very face of the sweeping scoop net, they force 
themselves through rapids, over falls, and by long underground 
drains, regardless of their perishing comrades, who by thousands 
falla prey to the fishermen and to hawks and eagles; or who 
run themselves ashore in their frantic efforts to get on. It may 
be that only a few reach the spawning ground, and these are 
enough to keep up the race; for one female will lay a quarter of 
millionof spawn. They are, therefore, par excellence domestic and 
cultivable fish, and have been so regarded in Massachusetts for 
generations. As early as 1741, there was passed “an act made 
to prevent the destruction of the fish called alewives,” wherein 
it was provided that any owner of a dam “shall make a sufficient 
passageway, for the fish to pass up such river or stream, through 
or around such dam.” 
It is, however, not until 1790, that the alewife fishery of 
Taunton Great River, first appears on the statute books, whose 
pages it was destined to encumber. If very few of my hearers 
know anything of Taunton Great River, the fact proves how 
miserably our system of popular education fails to instruct peo- 
ple concerning the most remarkable geographical features of the 
land. Taunton Great River was doubtless named in the spirit 
of contrary-mindedness already referred to as a characteristic in 
our puritan ancestors. The unregenerate would be inclined to 
