to such depth as to smother all in the shallow waters. Under present 

 conditions most of such fish are as a rule taken by seines and marketed. 

 We have had a great deal of complaining along this line, and the ar- 

 gument is frequently used that we have not done our full duty in not 

 insisting on the removal of such fish. Just how far our jurisdiction 

 may extend in the matter of private preserves, more than to insist 

 that only legal methods be used in taking these fish, is problematical, 

 as we might be trespassers if we insisted on removing them ourselves. 

 The whole question has much that is debatable in it, and for the good 

 of the work and its results in the future, should be carefully consid- 

 ered. The Illinois river is now a well traveled thoroughfare, and is 

 rapidly becoming known as one of the most beautiful and productive 

 streams in the country. Motor boats by the hundreds go over every 

 mile of it daily, and the attention of people all over the country is be- 

 ing attracted to its beauty and advantages. The time must come when 

 it will be utilized as a deep water way, and an impetus to business 

 will be given to a very important part of the State through such in- 

 creased business facilities. 



Protective Laws. 



As it has always been, the enforcement of the protective fish laws 

 remains a knotty problem. True, as each year passes public sentiment 

 grows more favorable to a better enforcement of these laws, and each 

 succeeding legislature gives us better laws, yet it seems as if no other 

 code of laws meets with so much opposition, both in the enactment and 

 enforcement as do those for the protection of fish, and those whom 

 one would think are the most directly benefitted by them of all, the men 

 engaged in fishing for the market. There would seem no possible 

 ground for argument on the subject since, without proper protection, 

 the fish supply would soon become practically extinct and their occupa- 

 tion gone. Yet many of those who have large amounts of capital in- 

 vested in the business, persist in fighting the most important provis- 

 ions of these laws. Remembering the results of the improvident and 

 wastful methods used in former years, before the enactment of pro- 

 tective laws, and the almost total depletion of the waters of our State 

 of some of our best market fish by such practices as were then in vogue, 

 it would seem that no other argument in favor of the protection could 

 be advanced than the increase in the product of these waters since 

 the advent of better production and the resultant betterment to the fish 

 industry itself. We have referred in former reports to the conditions 

 that existed on the Illinois and Mississippi rivers some thirty years 

 ago, when the wholesale destruction of the buffalo, then the great 

 market fish, was at its height. At the "rolling" or spawning season. 

 when the fish came into the shoal waters to deposit their spawn, they 

 were so easily taken and in such immense numbers, that they gradually 

 decreased until the output of the Illinois river went down from many 

 millions of pounds a year to less than one million. Most of these fish 

 were sent to St. Louis or other foreign markets, and in such quantities 

 that the markets were gutted, and being sent to sell on commission the 



