THIRTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 213 
ocean fisheries, is entitled to rank among the most important 
works of the Commission. The change that has been made in 
the method of taking cod and other species of the Gadide, has 
proved of such immense advantage to the New England fishermen 
that an entire revolution has been created in the winter shore cod 
fishery, and it is difficult to predict to how great an extent the 
gill-net fishery for cod may be prosecuted in the future. It is not 
possible now to say with any degree of certainty whether or not 
gill-nets may be successfully employed in the cod fisheries of the 
outer banks, since a thorough and careful trial needs to be made 
to settle that question. A few unsatisfactory attempts have al- 
ready been made by the fishermen to use gill-nets on the outer 
banks, but in no case have these trials been so extensive and 
thorough as to fully demonstrate what might or might not be 
done. In consideration of the results which have already been 
attained, it seems desirable that a brief historical sketch should 
be given here of the introduction of gill-nets into the cod fish- 
eries of the United States, and also of the varying success which 
has attended their use since they were first adopted by American 
fishermen. 
Though gill-nets have been long used in Northern Europe, 
more especially in Norway, as an apparatus for the capture of 
cod, and are considered by the Norwegians as quite indispensa- 
ble, they have not, until recently, been employed by American 
fishermen. In 1878, Professor Spencer F. Baird, United States 
Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, knowing how profitably 
these nets were employed by the Norwegian fishermen, decided 
to make experiments with them at Cape Ann, with a view to 
their introduction among the fishermen of this country. He ac- 
cordingly secured a number of the Norwegian nets, which were 
forwarded to Gloucester, and there tested by the employees of 
the Commission. 
Experiments were made when the winter school of cod were 
onthe shore grounds in Massachusetts bay, but the results ob- 
tained were not satisfactory, owing chiefly to the fact that the 
nets were found far too frail for the large cod which frequent our 
coast in winter. This was apparent from the numerous holes in 
the nets, which indicated plainly that large fish had torn their 
