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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



"pomace" in Maine ; and in Japan, owing 

 to lack of markets for the fish, immense 

 numbers are caught for the special pur- 

 pose of being converted into guano. An- 

 other product, usually made in connec- 

 tion with fertilizer, is oil, which has a 

 wide use in the trades. 



HERRING IN THE WATERS OE THE UNITED 

 STATES 



The herring fishery of the United 

 States has always held subordinate rank. 

 Although prosecuted from Puritan times 

 and attaining great value, it has always 

 been exceeded in importance by other 

 fisheries in the states where the herring 

 abounds. Owing to the distribution of 

 the fish, Maine and Massachusetts have 

 the most extensive fisheries, and the 

 quantity of herring taken in the other 

 New England states and in New York 

 and New Jersey is very small. At no 

 point south of Block Island does the fish 

 occur in sufficient numbers or with suffi- 

 cient regularity to support an established 

 industry. 



Owing to the great abundance of her- 

 ring in the shore waters of Maine and 

 Massachusetts, and of the British prov- 

 inces, there has been no occasion as yet to 

 seek the herring offshore, and hence the 

 American fishery differs markedly in 

 methods from the European. The oldest, 

 and for a long time the most common, 

 manner of fishing for herring is torch- 

 ing — a method learned from the aborigi- 

 nes. Up to about 1820 herring were 

 caught in no other way on the eastern 

 Maine coast. Torching depends on the 

 well-known instinct of herring and other 

 fishes to seek and follow a light, and is 

 carried on with very simple apparatus. 

 Projecting over the bow of a boat pro- 

 pelled by oars is a small iron basket, in 

 which a fire of birch bark or other highly 

 combustible material is kept burning 

 while the fishing is going on. As soon as 

 darkness comes on, the boat is rowed to 

 the fishing grounds, one man steering, 

 one man standing in the bow with a 

 large dip-net. As the herring gather in 

 little bunches in front of the light, they 

 are readily caught with the dip-net, and 



sometimes fifteen to twenty barrels may 

 thus be taken in a few hours. This 

 method is followed chiefly in Passama- 

 quoddy and Ipswich bays. 



THE HERRING ARE CAUGHT PRINCIPALLY 

 IN WEIRS 



Gill nets, haul seines, and purse seines 

 are more or less extensively employed for 

 herring on various parts of our coast, 

 but the characteristic apparatus in the 

 region of most important fishing is the 

 brush weir, which came into use about 

 1820 and for many years has been the 

 principal means of taking herring in 

 Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova 

 Scotia, being particularly important in 

 Passamaquoddy Bay and its tributaries. 

 The brush weir is an aboriginal fishing 

 device in all parts of the world, and vari- 

 ations in structure are numerous ; but its 

 essential feature is an inclosure made of 

 brush, located on the shore, on a bar, be- 

 tween the mainland and an island or 

 between two islands, into which the fish 

 wander and from which they are pre- 

 vented from escaping by their inability 

 to find the exit, by the fall of tide, by the 

 closing of the entrance, or by peculiarities 

 of construction. 



The herring brush weirs of the north- 

 east coast are very substantially built and 

 some are of large capacity and of consid- 

 erable value. The stout stakes or posts 

 are driven into the bottom at close inter- 

 vals, or, in case the bottom is rocky, are 

 attached to large stones, and this frame- 

 work is strengthened by heavy horizontal 

 stringers. The portion below low-water 

 line is closely woven with branches of 

 trees running horizontally, these being 

 pushed to the bottom by means of a 

 forked stick. The upper part of the weir 

 is of loosely woven brush extending ver- 

 tically two or three feet above high 

 water. As the average tidal movement 

 is twenty feet, and in spring nearly thirty 

 feet, the amount of material required is 

 considerable. Some weirs are mere semi- 

 circular inclosures, while others are pro- 

 vided with leaders or wings or both. 



The weirs are always fished at low 



