Pigare^ of Pi^I)e5 in Colore. 



Bv SHERMAN F. DENTON. 



A 



VERY important fish, though of little 

 value as food is 



Tl)e AenI)a(Ien. 



This species frequents our shores in 

 immense schools and is captured in nets in 

 innumerable thousands for the sake of its 

 oil, and also to be used as bait in the cod 

 and other fisheries. In many places it is 

 used to enrich the land for crops of corn 

 and potatoes, the farmer planting a men- 

 haden in each hill by way of a fertilizer. 

 At the factories where the oil is extracted 

 from the fish the refuse is converted into 

 excellent food for plants. 



A great deal of discussion has been 

 excited by the taking of the menhaden in 

 such vast quantities. It is claimed by many 

 that all kinds of fishes are captured indis- 

 criminately by the seiners and converted 

 into oil and fertilizer, thereby reducing the 

 supply of food fishes and very much injur- 

 ing the business of the inshore fishermen, 

 while by others the ocean is looked upon as 

 so vast and having such unlimited resources 

 in its varied life that man cannot affect the 

 grand total in any appreciable degree. 

 That some of the ocean fisheries have been 

 wellnigh exhausted is true beyond a doubt, 

 but that the numbers of an abundant, wandering, pelagic fish, such as the menhaden, 



367 



THE LOOKOUT — MENHADEN FISHING, 



