A.— INTRODUCTION. 



STATISTICS AND HISTORY OF FISHING VESSELS. 



According to the census of 1880 there were employed in the fisheries 

 of tbe United States, in that year, 6,605 vessels, of an aggregate tonnage 

 of 208,297.82 tons, valued at $9,357,282. The number of fishermen em- 

 ployed was 101,684, which includes those engaged in boat fishing as well 

 as those sailing on vessels. The most important fisheries in which these 

 are engaged are those for cod, mackerel, halibut, oysters, menhaden, 

 herring, and the whale. There are several other fisheries of more or 

 less consequence, but of less importance than those named above. The 

 bulk of the fishing fleet sails from New England, from which section the 

 whale fishery and the greater part of the ocean food fisheries are prose- 

 cuted. 



The fishing fleet of a nation is an important factor in the development 

 of its commerce as well as in its naval success. The building of fishing- 

 boats and vessels develops a taste for naval architecture which often may 

 result in decided benefit to the country, as well as advantage to the indi- 

 vidual. And these boats and vessels, besides accomplishing the more 

 special objects for which they were constructed, become training ships 

 upon which large numbers of seamen receive their technical education 

 which fits them not only for fishermen, but also to fill positions of re- 

 sponsibility in other naval pursuits. It is, I believe, a well established 

 historical fact that those nations wbich have enjoyed remarkable com- 

 mercial prosperity and naval supremacy can trace their success in these 

 particulars directly to their fishing industries, the pursuit of which has 

 developed an adventurous and enterprising naval spirit in the people. 



The colonization of North America was due almost wholly to the in- 

 terest felt in the fisheries of the Western Atlantic, and to this cause 

 alone may we look for the motive that induced people to settle in locali- 

 ties which afforded small attractions of any other kind. As a result of 

 the tendencies of the early settlers to engage in the fisheries, a fleet of 

 fishing vessels was employed as soon as the country was occupied. 



According to the old records snows and ketches were employed in the 

 bank cod fisheries when the business was first established, and at an 

 early date sloops were also engaged in fishing. In the records of Massa- 

 chusetts Colony, 1680, the statement is made that — 



" There are about one hundred or one hundred and twenty ships, 

 sloops, and other vessels that trade to and from hence, yearly, of 

 our own or English build, most of them belonging to this colony. Wee 

 have eight or ten ships [probably snows] of one*hundred tons or more, 

 and about forty or fifty fishing ketches of betwixt twenty and forty tons. 

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