Driven from the coasts of Newfoundland, as much by the English as by 

 the French and the Basques, they specialized early in the bank fishery. 



After diverse misfortunes which, leading to the bankruptcy of its cod 

 outfitters, rendered the Portuguese subject to great foreign imports of cod, 

 they rebuilt, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, a 

 great fleet of fishing vessels, comprising many old French three-masted 

 vessels. These remained, to the beginning of World War II, the only great 

 fleet of cod sailing vessels still active. 



The Portuguese fishermen stayed faithful to the hand line; but these 

 were not fished from the vessel. The fishing was done from small dories by 

 one man holding a line in each hand. The bait generally used was the great 

 sea- clam, a bivalve one finds in the mud at certain depths, and which was 

 supplied on the spot, lightly salted, by American vessels coming to fish on 

 the bank. The cod was prepared in about the same way as on the French sail- 

 ing vessels. 



Statisticians establish that the yield from this fishery is clearly inferior 

 to that of the trawl line fishery such as practiced by the French. But the 

 Portuguese outfitters found compensation from this difference in the cost of 

 outfitting in the two methods. 



Americans and Canadians who practiced the fishery on the banks, the 

 Western Banks and the Grand Banks, use modern motor schooners from 100 

 to 150 tons. Some still use the hand-line; the others fish, like the French, 

 with line trawls, using the sea clam as bait. But, thanks to motor dories, 

 they visit the trawls three times a day, underrunning the lines and rebaiting. 

 Thus they get a greater yield than results from one hauling per day. 



Cod thus captured undergoes, on board and ashore, diverse kinds of 

 preparations, furnishing special products adapted to the tastes of American 

 and Canadian consumers. 



Concurrently with the cod fishery, these small vessels draw extra profit 

 from two fish also captured on the banks, the haddock and the halibut, whose 

 use is partially or wholly neglected on French vessels. 



The flesh of the haddock, lean, scanty, and with little thickness, is not 

 suitable for salting and gives by this process a product of mediocre market 

 value. Also the haddock is only salted as a last resort, aboard sailing 



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