THE POUND-NET FISHERIES OF THE ATLANTIO STATES. 601 
“All the edible varieties of fish taken in our weirs find a ready market in New York, where 
they are sent, packed in ice, every day. The weirs are visited every tide, and all of value brought 
to the shore, while the ‘trash’ is thrown outside, to be carried off by the next tide.” 
DISTRIBUTION OF THE GATOH.—Most of the pounds on the north shore are in direct commu- 
nication with the markets by rail. The Cape Cod branch of the Old Colony line threads its way 
along the entire cape from Sandwich to Provincetown, and during the height of the fishing season 
special trains are frequently run in the interests of the fisheries. The favorite market is Boston, 
as being nearest, but great quantities of fish are sent to New York and Philadelphia, and occasion- 
ally as far south as Baltimore. 
The mass of the products is shipped fresh, packed in ice. Almost all the weir companies are 
in the habit of buying boards cut in suitable lengths for shipping-boxes, the latter being put 
together as fast as they are needed. The weight of a full box ready for shipment is about 300 
pounds. About the packing-houses of the more important weir companies, such as Philip Smith’s, 
at Eastham, one sees great piles of these boards, which give the premises the appearance of small 
lumber-yards. 
THE WEIR COMPANIES.—The business organization of the north-shore weir companies is not 
complicated. Usually four or five men own the weir, two or three of whom act as fishermen and 
one as bookkeeper. In the larger companies, however, the number of stockholders is often not 
less than ten or twelve, and the majority do not take an active part in the real work of the com- 
pany, but simply invest their money here as they would in any other enterprise. The stock fre- 
quently amounts to several thousand dollars, and covers the cost of ‘the weir, ice-houses, horses 
and carts, boats, tools, boxes, and other necessary apparatus and accessories of the business. In 
favorable years the investment is a profitable one. The more impecunious fishermen look with 
envy upon the wealthy weir-owners, and many regard them as at once the destroyers of their 
financial prosperity and of the fishes from which it might be derived. The Nobscussett Weir 
Company of Dennis, in 1872, declared a dividend of 20 per cent.* The interest on the capital is 
usually not less than 10 per cent. 
Nearly every company has an agent at the markets, who sells the fish and forwards the money 
obtained to the bookkeeper, after deducting his commission. The agents have almost unlimited 
powers in many cases, and seem to be implicitly trusted by the fishermen. 
The running expenses of the companies are made up of items for packing-boxes, ice, trans- 
portation, commission fees, and for repairs on the weirs. The last is an important item, for it 
frequently happens that the weirs are kept in the water too late in the fall, and, encountering the 
violence of an autumnal gale, are torn to pieces and thrown upon the shore. 
6. TRAP FISHING ON THE SOUTH SIDE OF CAPE COD AND IN VINEYARD SOUND. 
LoOcATION OF THE POUNDS.—On the shores of Vineyard Sound we find quite a different 
pound fishery from that existing on the north side of the cape. The pound-nets here employed 
are “pounds,” properly so called, being constructed entirely of netting. The huge seas which roll 
through the sound in stormy weather would make quick work of the destruction of lath pound- 
nets if the fishermen were foolish enough to attempt to employ them. The ordinary form of 
‘“heart-seine” is the net most employed,t but at Waquoit and some other places “square pounds,” 
*See Provincetown Advertiser, January 10, 1872. 
+See section on APPaRaTus for description of these pounds. 
