8 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
METHODS AND STATISTICS OF THE FISHERIES. 
The conduct of this division has continued under the direction of 
Mr. J. W. Collins, assistant in charge, but since his designation, in Au- 
gust, 1890,as the representative of the Commission on the Government 
Board of Controland Management of the World’s Columbian Exposi- 
tion, much of the supervision of the work has devolved upon Dr, Hugh 
M. Smith, the principal assistant in the division, to whose accompa- 
nying report (pages 173-204) reference is anade for a detailed account 
of the nature, scope, purposes, and results of the work during the period 
under consideration. 
The inquiries have been mainly confined to the collection and com- 
pilation of the statistics of the fisheries of the United States, giving 
the quantity and value of the products, the capital invested, the number 
and nationalities of persons employed, and to the study of the methods 
and relations of the fisheries with a view to their improvement. 
The limited appropriation and the consequent small force available 
for this work preclude the possibility of an annual investigation of the 
fisheries of the entire coast and inland waters of the country; even if 
this should be attempted, it is open to question whether the variations 
in the fisheries from year to year are generally sufficiently marked, or 
whether at this time the results would be of sufficient importance to 
warrant the largely increased expenditures that would be required to 
properly conduct the work. Comparative statistics are more valuable 
when they relate to definite intervals of time than when they cover 
successive years. The researches of the Commission, which have been 
addressed to every section of the coast, furnish data for the comparison 
of conditions at intervals of three or four years and the determination 
of the influences of the methods and means employed upon the pros- 
perity of the fisheries. Thus pursued, they furnish important material 
which has been or may be useful as the basis for the regulation, protec- 
tion, maintenance, and improvement of the fisheries, and for advancing 
the physical and financial conditions of the fishermen. 
The investigations undertaken during the two years covered by 
this report were more extensive than had previously been carried on. 
Field work was done in twenty-two States; complete studies of the 
coast fisheries were made in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, 
Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas; inquiries begun " 
during the previous year were brought to a close in New York and Cali- 
fornia; and special investigations were made in Maryland, Virginia, 
Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington, and elsewhere. 
