THE RIVER FISHERIES OF MAINE. 699 
to local fishermen, who still continue to ship the flesh to New York, but throw away all other 
parts. In 1880, the least successful season in recent times, 12 fishermen were engaged in the busi- 
ness on the Kennebec, and the total catch was about 250 sturgeon, producing about 12,500 pounds 
of flesh, which sold in New York = 7 cents and returned the fishermen about 5 centy per pound. 
4, DESCRIPTIVE AND HISTORICAL NOTES ON LOCAL FISHERIES. 
Saint Crorx RIvER.—The Saint Croix is remarkable, even among the rivers of Maine, for the 
great extent of the lake surface among its tributaries. On the best maps are represented 61 lakes, 
of which the smallest has an area of three-quarters of a square mile and the largest of 27 square 
miles. Their aggregate area is about 150 square miles, which is about 15 per cent. of the entire basin 
of the river. These lakes afforded breeding ground for great numbers of alewives, and, in the main 
river and its branches, here the salmon and there the shad found their favorite haunts. The 
exact limit of the upward migration of all these fishes is very naturally unknown with any degree 
of exactness, the entire upper portions of the basin being a wilderness till long after the occupa- 
tion of the lower banks and the erection of artificial obstructions ; but the fact of their existence 
in great numbers in the river shows that they must all have passed the only serious obstacle to 
their ascent, the natural fall at Salmon Falls near the head of the tide, and found their breeding 
grounds in the upper waters. 
The best accessible testimony as to the former condition of these fisheries is found in Perley’s 
“ Report on the Fisheries of the Bay of Fundy.”* The testimony there adduced may be thus 
summarized: From the first settlement of the country till 1825 there was annually a great abund- 
ance of salmon, shad, and alewives. Vessels from Rhode Island, of 100 to 150 tons burthen, fol- 
lowed the fishing business on the river and were never known to leave without full cargoes. There 
were also several seines belonging to the inhabitants, which were worked in the tideway of the 
river, the owners of which put up annually from 1,500 to 2,000 barrels of alewives for exportation, 
besides a sufficiency for country use. At the same time shad were caught in great numbers, often 
more than a hundred of them being caught in a small net ina single night. Salmon were so plenty 
that, according to testimony, a boy of fifteen has been known to take 500 in a single season with 
4 dip-net, and a man has been known to take 118 salmon with a dip-net in a single day. The dip- 
ping place, both for salmon and shad, was at Salmon Falls. The prevailing price for salmon was 
4 or 5 cents per pound. About1825 the building of dams had reached such a stage as to seriously 
interfere with the ascent of fish, and they began rapidly to decline in numbers. In 1850 it was es- 
timated that not over 200 salmon were taken. The decline in the alewife fishery had been equally 
great, and in the shad fishery still greater. 
At the present time the condition of things is not much better than in 1850. The three dams 
at Calais and Baring, notwithstanding the construction of fishways, are very serious impediments, 
partly because they facilitate the work of poachers, and but few fish reach their spawning-grounds. 
Salmon are now taken in sufficient numbers to encourage the continuance of the fishery, and as 
incidental items there are taken a few alewives, a very few shad and bass, and small quantities of 
smelts and eels. The implements of capture are five weirs in the tidal portions and an uncertain 
number of drift and dip nets at Calais and Saint Stephen. 
The weirs are similar to those in use on the Penobscot and Kennebec; two of them, those 
farthest up river, are half-tide weirs, and the others are “high weirs,” with two pounds each, built 
of netting and stakes. They are all built in the spring and removed in the autumn. The half. 
“Made by M. H. Perley, esq., to the Government Emigration Office, Saint John, New Brunswick, March 12, 1851. 
