XX REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



the contrary, perhaps, being the case, since by means of the improved 

 methods of capture, in the way of pounds and nets, an immense supply 

 is taken out at certain seasons of the year so as frequently to glut the 

 markets. The scarcity referred to is better shown by the great difficulty 

 experienced by line-fishermen in securing a proper supply throughout 

 the year on grounds where they were formerly able to catch all they 

 needed for their own use and for sale.* 



The evil effects of the state of things here indicated, are felt in many 

 ways. Primarily on the part of many fishermen, resident on the coast, 

 who have been in the habit of making a living by the proceeds of their 

 occupation, not only supplying themselves with food, fresh and salt, 

 for the year, but also inakiug a comfortable living by sales of their sur- 

 plus. At the present time this resource is cutoff to a great degree from 

 this class of people in many places on the Massachusetts coast, where, 

 as on Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and elsewhere, the deprivation 

 from the loss of profits by fishing is being most seriously felt. The re- 

 sult, of course, of the inability to make a living in this manner is to 

 drive the line-fishermen to other occupations, and especially to induce 

 them to leave the State for other fields of industry. In consequence 

 the population is reduced, and the community feels this drain of some 

 of its best material in many ways. Furthermore, property depreciates 

 in value, farms and houses are abandoned, the average of taxation is 

 increased, and many other evils, readily suggesting themselves, are 

 developed. 



Again, an important stimulus to the building of ships and boats is 

 lost in the decreasing demand for vessels of various grades ; and, what 

 is more important to the country at large, the training of skilled sea- 

 men with which to supply our national and our merchant marine gener- 

 ally is stopped, or more or less interfered with. It is well known that 

 the line-fisheries, in their different manifestations, have always been 

 looked upon as of the utmost importance in a politico-economical point 

 of view, for which reason bounties were paid by the General Gov- 

 ernment; and, although these have been lately withheld, it may yet be 

 necessary to restore them in order to regain our lost ground. 



II. Causes of the decrease. — As the testimony and considerations 

 already adduced may justly be considered as establishing the fact of the 

 vast decrease in the extent and value of- the summer shore-fisheries on 

 the south side of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, the question recurs 



*In the article on scnp in the body of the report (p. 228) will be found a detailed ac- 

 count of the occurrence of the young fish, to an enormous extent, in the spring of 1871, and 

 the speculations as to their origin. These reappeared in 1872, though in much less numbers, 

 as two-year-old fish, and by autumn weighed from one-third to half a pound, and will 

 doubtless be met with again in 1873 as marketable fish. There is, however, no evidence 

 to show that a renewed supply of young fish, or at least in anything like the same 

 numbers, was present in 1872 ; which tends to render the problem of their appeareuce 

 still more difficult of solution. 



