PERSONS EMPLOYED, SALARIES, AND WAGES. 



17 



and independent fishermen. Nearly two- thirds of 

 this class were reported from the Atlantic coast division, 

 the Mississippi River division ranking second with a 

 little more than one-eighth, followed by the Pacific 

 coast, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Great Lakes, in the 

 order named. The greatest percentage of proprietors 

 and independent fishermen appears invariably in shore 

 and boat fisheries. This is natural, as it was to be 

 expected that independent fishermen would pre- 

 ponderate in the class of fisheries wherein the capital 

 required and cost of operation are not great. 



The largest proportion which the proprietors and 

 independent fishermen formed of the total number of 

 persons employed is shown for the Mississippi River 

 division, where more than three-fourths were of this 

 class. The number is smallest, relatively, in the Gulf 

 of Mexico division, but even there it exceeds one-third. 



The salaried employees are almost a negligible 

 quantity, amounting to only two-tenths of 1 per cent 

 for the United States as a whole. 



Wage-earners and wages. — The number of wage- 

 earners in this report is the total number employed at 

 any time during the year. The wages returned on the 

 schedules were not those of the average fisherman, 

 nor for any uniform period throughout the country, 

 nor were they such as might have been secured if 

 employment had been continuous. 



In many cases remuneration is not wholly in money 

 wages, but consists either altogether or in part in a 

 share of the catch, the share being given usually as 

 50 per cent of the catch after certain expenses are 

 deducted. 



It was impossible in most cases to obtain from the 

 returns the net share of the catch going to the fisher- 

 man. This share had sometimes been calculated 

 weekly by the employing fisherman from slips which 

 had been at once destroyed. In many cases an esti- 

 mate, made either by the employer or by the special 

 agent upon information furnished, had to serve the 

 purpose. These estimates, however, are believed to 

 be substantially representative of the income received. 



Some inland fishermen work for wages, with appa- 

 ratus and board furnished; others are paid by the 

 bushel or according to the weight of their catch. In 

 some coast fisheries men were given $25 a month and 

 board while employed, the value of the board being 

 calculated at $10 a month. When board was fur- 

 nished in addition to wages it is included in the 

 earnings given here. The earnings were frequently 

 pieced out in other industries or occupations, as, for 

 instance, in hunting or trapping, or perhaps in 

 farming; for in some sections there are farmers who, 

 being located near rivers, set seines and trawls, em- 

 ploying for this purpose men who, when not thus 

 occupied, do farm work. 



The nationality of the fishermen may possibly have 

 something to do with the variations in the earnings in 

 the various sections of the country. On the Gulf of 

 7678(i°— 11 2 



Mexico and Southern Atlantic coasts there has been 

 little change in the nationality of the fishermen. Off 

 the coast of Maine the fishermen are practically all 

 natives. On some sections of the Massachusetts coast 

 a great number of the deep-sea fishermen are Portu- 

 guese and natives of Nova Scotia. In other localities 

 in this state the shore and boat fisheries are carried on 

 largely by Italians. A considerable number of fisher- 

 men in Rhode Island are Greeks. From New Jersey 

 there were reported a number of Swedes, Norwegians, 

 and Finns engaged in the vessel fisheries. In addition 

 to Americans — Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, Slavonians, 

 Greeks, Italians, Chinese, and Japanese are engaged 

 in the fishery industries of the Pacific coast. 



Most of the vessels of the New England fisheries make 

 a number of voyages to the fishing grounds in the 

 course of a year. In some instances the crews were 

 engaged all the year round in one kind of fisheries or 

 another, whereas in others the catch was confined to 

 one or two kinds of fish and the season was accordingly 

 limited. For some of the Middle Atlantic states the 

 coast fisherman's average season was given as six 

 months. The oyster season lasts from September to 

 May, when the crab season begins. The shad season 

 starts in December in the South when the shad enters 

 the rivers to spawn, and the season is successively 

 later and later northward. Drift or rip fishing off the 

 Massachusetts coast lasts from January 1 to October, 

 and hand line-fishing from the side of the vessel extends 

 to the end of the calendar year. 



It will be noted that for the United States as a 

 whole the earnings considered relatively to the number 

 of wage-earners are greatest for the fishermen em- 

 ployed upon vessels. This is due to various causes, 

 among them being a greater continuity of employment. 

 In some instances vessels engaged in fishing during the 

 fishing season were employed in freighting or excursion 

 business for the rest of the year. Thus the crew was 

 employed for the entire year and the wages reported 

 represented the year's work, as it was impossible to 

 obtain an estimate of the amount that should be 

 charged to fishing. In the shore and boat fisheries, 

 on the other hand, there are intervals of unemployment, 

 and the earnings can be supplemented, if need be, by 

 work in other occupations. Moreover, the number of 

 fishermen employed on vessels is more readily ascer- 

 tainable; if there are no records, then the estimates can 

 be more closely based on fact. The records for the 

 shore and boat fisheries are likely to be scattered ; and 

 as the statistics were taken some months after the 

 close of the calendar year 1908, it is probable that the 

 numbers reported were not always perfectly accurate. 



The earnings of the men employed on transporting 

 vessels ranked second. Their high relative earnings 

 also may be explained by the more accurate methods 

 of establishing the figures and the more nearly con- 

 tinuous employment observed in connection with 

 vessel fisheries. The earnings of shoresmen ranked 



