im , 
REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 195 
MINOR FIELD WORK. 
A number of other investigations, some of a more or less local nature, 
were undertaken by the division, among which the following may be 
mentioned : 
The canvass of the fisheries of the State of New York, referred to in 
a previous report, which began in May, 1889, occupied the next fiscal 
year until August 24, when Mr. Charles H. Stevenson, the field agent 
who had been conducting it, was transferred to work in the New Eng- 
land States. This inquiry related to the calendar years 1887 and 1888, 
and the information was in part utilized in a statistical abstract of the 
coast fisheries. 
In March, 1891, Mr. W. A. Wilcox made an examination of the whole- 
sale fish and oyster trades of Philadelphia. Part of the information 
obtained was utilized in a report on the statistics of the fishery indus- 
tries, and part will be available for incdrporation in a later report on 
the fisheries of the Middle Atlantic States, the investigation of which 
is contemplated. 
Independently of the extensive investigation of the entire fishing 
industry of the New England States, to which reference has been made, 
Mr. F. F. Dimick, the local agent of the office at Boston, Mass., has 
boarded each vessel landing fish at that’ port and obtained an ac- 
count of the quantities and values of each kind of fish taken and the 
‘grounds on which the fishing was done, together with other information 
relating to the number and nationality of the crew, value of vessel, value 
of outfit and apparatus, etc. As Boston is the center of the fresh-fish 
fishery of New England, and as a large fleet of market and other ves- 
sels belonging not only at Boston but at many other fishing ports on 
the New England coast makes its headquarters at that place, the re- 
turns thus made by Mr. Dimick convey a very good idea of the extent 
and condition of the vessel fisheries of that region and are especially 
valuable in that they definitely indicate the actual and relative impor- 
tance of the various fishing-grounds resorted to by the different vessels 
engaging in the different fisheries. Work essentially similar to that in 
Boston is done by Capt. 8S. J. Martin, a local agent, at Gloucester, 
Mass., and taken in conjunction with the inquiry made by Mr. 
Dimick in whole or in part covers the operations of nearly seven-eighths 
of the offshore fishing vessels of New England. 
In June, 1891, Mr. Stevenson visited Wilmington, Del., and Newark, 
N. J., to obtain certain statistical and other information concerning the 
porpoise fisheries on the North Carolina coast south of Cape Hatteras. 
These are controlled by oil and leather companies located in the cities 
named, and the data desired by the office could not be secured at the 
time the agent visited the region in the course of the regular investi- 
gation of the fisheries of North Carolina already alluded to. 
