98 



FOREST AND STREAM. 



[Feb. 3, 1804. 



their action and determine their precise effect on thefisberies. 

 By Chapter 104, of 1876, as amended by Chapter 28, of 1881, the 

 owners of all mechanical apparatus for catching fish were 

 required to return under oath to the Fish Commissioners, 

 their daily catch of edible fish, specifying each kind, upon 

 blanks furnished for the purpose, under a penalty of not. less 

 than $10 or more than $100. Chapter 61, of 1S80, provided that 

 from May 1 to June 15 no pounds, etc., should be set in Bnz- 

 zards_ Bay "between the hours of 6 o'clock on Saturday 

 morning and 6 o'clock on Sunday evening," under a penalty 

 of not less than $100 or more than $200. 



Steady Growth. 



As in 1856, the first nets to be abolished, when a chauge 

 came, were gill nets etc.; not because regarded as at all so 

 dangerous to the fisheries as pounds, but because as a matter 

 of town politics, it was easier. Outsiders, from anywhere, 

 could, it was claimed, injure town fisheries by gill nets while 

 pounds had at least the advantage of being profitable to one's 

 own townsmen. In 1886 (Chap. 192) a sweeping act, covering 

 the entire bay provided that no person should "draw, set, 

 stretch or use any drag net, set net or gill net, purse. or sweep 

 seine of any kind for taking fish anywhere in the waters of 

 Buzzards Bay, within the jurisdiction of this common- 

 wealth, nor in any harbor, cove or bight of said bay," except 

 certain parts of Fairhaven. In 1890 (Chap. 229) and 1891 

 (Chap. 327) these exceptions were repealed. The use of all 

 movable) apparatus was absolutely prohibited in Buzzards 

 Bay. 



Pounds Abolished. 



Pounds, etc. , continued for some years to be licensed by the 

 selectmen. But the citizens of Falmouth, Mattapoisett and 

 Fairhaven took a band in the matter by the simple expedient 

 of electing selectmen pledged against licenses. Fairhaven 

 led off. In 1890, after two unsuccessful attempts, the anti- 

 pound element, composed equally of line fishermen and 

 citizens (Fairhaven has practically no summer residents or 

 visiting sportsmen) elected their candidates as selectmen. 

 In 1891, by an increasfd majority and in 1892, with practical 

 unanimity, the town re-elected the same officers on the same 

 platform. In 1891 and 1892, Falmouth at its annual meeting, 

 by a two-third vote elected i*s selectmen to issue no more 

 licenses. In Mattapoisett, the selectmen refused to issue 

 licenses, and were continuously re-elected on this under- 

 standing. In 1887 (Chap. 193) Westport procured a law which 

 they construed as forbidding them to set pounds, and in 1892 

 the entire bay, except Dartmouth and the Elizabeth Islands, 

 petitioned the Legislature for the removal of pounds. 

 The effort succeeded the year later. By Chapter 205 of 1893, 

 it is provided that "No traps, weirs, pounds, yards or station 

 ary apparatus of any kind for the taking of fish, shall be set, 

 used or maintained in the waters of Buzzards Bay or any 

 harbor, cove or bight thereof." The experiment of 1856 was 

 thus completed in 1893. and no nets, fixed or floating, are at 

 present permitted in Buzzards Bay, except so far as pound 

 licenses already issued are allowed to expire by limitation. 



Restriction Popular. 



Even from so bare and brief a story, certain deductions 

 follow. In the first place, in at least one instance, consistent 

 fish preservation has strongly commended itself to native 

 populations. From 1865 to 1893 there has been no step back- 

 ward. No community to which fish protection has been ex- 

 tended ever asked for a return to the old conditions; Each 

 extension of the protected zone has always been demanded 

 by a new community anxious to share advantages enjoyed 

 by their neighbors. No one from without has imposed these 

 restrictions. Honestly or otherwise, at any rate frequently, it 

 is said that such fish protection has been the work of "sports- 

 men," for wanton pastime or elegant leisure, contemptuous 

 of the rights and interests of their less fortunate neighbors. 

 If there is still an honest believer in so ancient and discred- 

 ited a fallacy, let him visit the anuual March town 

 meeting of a Buzzards Bay town. It is a gathering 

 which every one attends. It is a leisure time. It is the event 

 of the year. Everything in which the average citizen is in- 

 terested, schools, roads, taxes, town officers, etc., will be set- 

 tled for a year. The summer resident, the sportsman, are 

 far away. Here and there is a long-booted fisherman, but 

 the wielder of the 8oz. rod is sought in vain. Faces, clothes, 

 speech, manners, everything, is eloquent of the very quint- 

 essence of town meeting democracy. Every man is aware 

 that, to put it modestly, he is just as good as his neighbor. 

 It is a. motley, turbulent, but earnest and honest assemblage. 

 Its shrewd common sense is not easily misled by specious 

 reasoning. It can neither be led nor driven against its will 

 merely to oblige some one else. Indeed, if our excellent Buz- 

 zards Bay citizen has a fault in the world it is that he is 

 rather apt to regard his neighbor's wanting something as 

 reason enough for opposing it. 



Yet precisely such meetings as this, year by year, have en- 

 acted that there shall be no pounds in Buzzards Bay. Under 

 such circumstances, to claim such exclusion to be the work 

 of sportsmen is simply false. The expression is graphic, if 

 not parliamentary. 



It will be noticed also that the larger the area over which 

 restriction has been extended the more rapid is the growth 

 of popular opinion in its favor. It accordingly has happened 

 that while the earlier steps are short ones and occur at long 

 intervals, the final steps are giant strides and follow each 

 other in quick succession. In fact, it has long been an open 

 secret at our State House that outside opposition to fish pre- 

 servation in Buzzards Bay has not come so much from a 

 feeling that Buzzards Bay ought not to have what she 

 wanted, but from a deep rooted apprehension lest the rapid 

 growth of sentiment among our people in favor of this 

 change might prove contagious to other localities and 

 thereby bring on a flood of similar attempts in other parts of 

 the State, which might seriously complicate the bait ques- 

 tion for Gloucester and other fishing ports of Massachusetts. 



A Natural Feeling. 



It is easy to account for this growth of local feeling. The 

 experiment in the first place has borne results in the matter 

 of food. The persistent claim for netting has beeu that it 

 made cheap fish. Our peoplefind no fish cheaper than those 

 they catch for themselves. To them no fishing is really 

 cheap which ends in local extermination, and they find that 

 while under the new conditions Buzzards Bay yearly re- 

 cruits the stock of food fish to enrich adjacent waters, it also 

 furnishes to any who dwell upon or visit its shores in perfect 

 equality of opportunity an unfailing supply of cheap and 

 nutritious food. It is unnecessary to say that this is excep- 

 tionally beneficial to the poor. A much quoted instance is 

 that of Fairhaven. In 1889 so persistently had netting been 

 carried on that the goose of the golden egg was dead. Every- 

 thing had been cleaned out, and the netters themselves no 

 longer cared to oppose the naturally intensified demand for 

 a change. The effect of abolishing traps was marvelous. 

 From an absolute dearth of fish they began to be again 

 plenty, of larger size than formerly, and found in places to 

 which they had long been strangers. So marked w r as the 

 change that the overseers of the poor of Fairhaven testified 

 before the Legislature that they could appreciate the removal 

 of pounds by the decreased demands for town relief. They 

 were satisfied from seeing the large number of poor men — 

 heads of families — who fished from the long bridge between 

 Fairhaven and New Bedford that never had anything oc- 

 cured in the history of Fairhaven so beneficial to the poor. 

 They testified also that the market price of fish in Fairhaven 

 continued as low if not lower than formerly, the line fisher- 

 men finding no difficulty in furnishing the market with a 

 steady supply of excellent fish. 

 This benefit of cheap food is not confined to our own citi- 



zens. People from all parts of the State and all sections of 

 the country enjoy, on equal terms with ourselves, the benefit 

 of cheap fish food. To cite r>ne instance among many. The 

 valuation of the vil lage of Onset Bay, in the town of Ware- 

 ham, is about $450,000. Included in this total are over 300 

 houses of non-resident tax-payers, costing less than $1,000 

 each This can mean but one thing — that people of moderate 

 means find that during the heated term the fish they buy or 

 can catch enable them to live cheaper in a modest seaside 

 cottage than at home. To their children, equally with those 

 of the rich, are extended all the health giving privileges of 

 the shore, its bathing, fishing, air and scenery. Cheap trains, 

 cheap rents and cheap fish food bring health and recreation 

 within the reach of all classes of our people. 



Handline Fishing. 



An incidental result of removing pounds has been a 

 great increase in handline fishing. In our experience the 

 price of fish, like that of other commodities, has been found 

 to be regulated by demand and supply. The pound netters 

 themselves and many others of our people have found profit- 

 able employment in supplying the market, and find no diffi- 

 culty in doing so, with little, if any, increase of price. The 

 moment more than a fair profit is realized, others go into the 

 business. This arrangement is much more satisfactory, both 

 to consumers and to the fishermen, for several important 

 reasons. (1) The supply is regular and "dependable." The 

 catch of the line fisherman is not subject to the violent 

 fluctuations characteristic of pound netting. For days a 

 pound may make small catches and then suddenly there 

 comes an avalanche of fish. There is no market that will 

 take them. It will not pay to ship. Many fish, especially 

 smaller ones, are killed by suffocation or gilled in the nets. 

 They are thrown away. The other fish are yarded, waiting 

 for a market, without food aud chafing against each other, 

 until, in an enfeebled condition, they are sold. (2) The fish, 

 as caught by line fishing, are fresh, mature and in good con- 

 dition, comparatively free from spawn. (3) The present 

 method more evenly distributes over the community the 

 common wealth of the sea. For a few men making large 

 profits and employing a few persons for a short time in the 

 spring to drive the poles, it substitutes a large number of 

 persons making a fair living over a long season. A few 

 figures will explain the feeling of our people iu this connec- 

 tion. In eleven years four men in Falmouth by the aid of 

 pounds caught 7,997,365 edible fish, divided by species as 

 follows: 



Striped bass 2,549 Kingfish 1,382 



Shad 2,687 Bonito 5,007 



Squeteague 82.769 Sea bass 45,661 



Mackerel 86 187 Sea herring 1,027,372 



Bluefish 28,362 Alewives 917,716 



Tautog 51.088 Menhaden 987,711 



Scup 3,433,207 Butterfish 525,114 



Flounders 91,977 Squid 225.596 



Spanish mackerel 211 Other edible fish ..... 480,330 



Eels 2,439 



In 1889, a single year, six pounds in Falmouth caught 

 31,848 menhaden, 82,720 alewives, 191,201 butterfish, 301,894 

 scup, and other fish making a total of 663,176 fish. Three 

 Mattapoisett pounds caught 43,286 fish. The eight pounds of 

 Fairhaven caught 275,976 alewives, 256,187 butterfish, and a 

 total of 804 345 fish. The thirteen traps of Darmouth caught 

 276,487 alewives, 112,770 scup, 130,208 butterfish, and a total of 

 586,797 fish. 



Here are thirty men catching at least 2,097,604 mature edi- 

 ble fish, nothing being said of spawn and young fry. The 

 instinctive feeling of injustice from comparing such catches 

 with the average catch of a handline fisherman, who is 

 equally meritorious and whose rights in the common prop- 

 erty are precisely equal, has had no small effect with us in 

 changing the system. The more even distribution of the 

 harvest of the sea is apparent in the prosperity of our boat- 

 men, the increased comfort of their homes, and the large 

 number of splendid fishing boats in which their earnings are 

 largely invested. 



"Sport or Business?" 



Only less important than the value of the food which fish 

 give us is considered attractiveness to others. In this is in- 

 volved our genera] means of livelihood. The fish as food not 

 only has proved an attraction to large numbers. The in- 

 cidental or accidental sport attendant on their capture has 

 brought us prosperity in still larger measure. It is practi- 

 cally all we have. Take it away and we would have but lit- 

 tle left. Our people ouce led a seafaring life. The sea is no 

 longer open to onr ships. We used to manufacture. The 

 conditions are not such as to enable us to carry it on. Our 

 sterile soils cannot compete on staple crops with the fertility 

 of the West. The Buzzards Bay towns, in this necessary 

 absence of other pursuits, have largely and seriously entered 

 upon the business of entertaining summer guests. 



This new element has very happily arrived to supply in 

 part, at least, our previous lo*s. Abandoned farmhouses have 

 become ta-teful residences: unproductive fields magnificent 

 estates. Drowsy towns have become hustling communities. 

 Sandy highways grown to broad avenues. Generous indorse- 

 ments for social aud educational improvement has become 

 the order of the. day- Falmouth, fi-orn a quiet town of small 

 valuation, and high tax rate, boasts a valuation of about 

 $5,000,000 with a tax rate of $6.15 per thousand. The valua- 

 tion of Wareham has increased 8500,000 since 1876, while the 

 manufacturing valuation has fallen off nearly $200,000, Onset 

 growing from $600 valuation iu 1876 to $450,000 in 1890. 

 Bourne since 1884 has added over $345,000 to her valuation, 

 adding iu 1890 over $96,000, and iu 1891 over $83,000. Nothing 

 else, even remotely, compares with this in beneficial results. 

 It is impossible to put a dollar's worth of new valuation into 

 a town without benefiting all its inhabitants. But entire 

 communities show the direct, as well as the indirect, advan- 

 tage of the influx The liberal wages paid to our carpenters, 

 masons, teamsters, plasterers, painters, and a host of others, 

 who find steady aud remunerative employment in building 

 the houses, often of moderate cost, which are needed; the 

 ready and excellent market which is furnished our farmers 

 for their produce; to our grocers and provision dealers for 

 their supplies; the wages paid for services of boatmen, gar 

 deuers, coachmen— all tell the same story. There are very 

 few families in all our towns who do not owe some welcome 

 increase of comfort or accession of income directly to the new 

 prosperity. 



I am keenly conscious that this phenomenal growth in 

 wealth and population attendant on and largely based on 

 the fish preservation will be met with the outcry that this is 

 preservation for "sport." As a matter of fact this is not so, 

 as has been seen in the successive action of forty Massachu- 

 setts legislatures in endeavoring primarily to protect the 

 food supply. This is not the place for any consideration of 

 the general value of "sport" and "sportsmen." But Buz- 

 zards Bay has never recognized the proprietary right of a 

 market man in the fish of the coast. In endeavoring to pre- 

 serve the equal rights of all citizens in their common prop- 

 erty it has considered that, within common limits, the right 

 of one citizen to catch fish for food in an orderly manner, 

 gaining health and relaxation from the incidental pleasure, 

 was fully as good as that of his neighbor to catch the same 

 fish for the market. Sport has not yet been decreed a crime 

 and it has not been definitely ascertained that wealth, 

 leisure aud refinement place their possessor beyond legisla- 

 tive protection. 



Cost Value of Sport. 



Indeed Buzzards Bay reeognizes that there may be hard 

 cash for it in the pleasures of others. This is an aspect of 1 



the question which daily becomes more obtrusive. To the 

 visitor the fishing may possibly be sport. But to the hotel - 

 keeper with whom he stops, his money is "business." To 

 the boatman who carries him, it means merely a hard day's 

 work for fair pay. To all whom the innkeeper's prosperity 

 or that of the boatman may benefit, it is most strictly 

 "business." Should the visitor enjoy his trip, he buys land 

 —more "business" to the man who sells it; he builds a house, 

 which makes "business" for a host of others; he, his family, 

 and his improved land, are then perpetual tribute payers to 

 the town. He brings his friends to repeat the process. Each 

 bluefish he catches brings us at least $15 or $20, the benefit of 

 which must go through the community. The market value 

 of the same bluefish is usually not over fifty cents. 



This business seems to us as legitimate as any other. To 

 furnish health through relaxation may be fully as beneficial 

 to the community at large as furnishing it through medicine. 

 This business is our bread and butter. It is an incidental 

 result of preserving our food supply of fish. If the food sup- 

 ply of the country needs these fish, it must have them. But 

 if the food supply is best conserved and recruited by methods 

 which incidentally yield such splendid results iu giving live- 

 lihood to whole communities, the result is to the credit of 

 the experiment. At any rate, Buzzards Bay so regards it. 

 To multiply instances of how much this means to us is 

 unnecessary. The distinguished President of the United 

 States will suffice as a conspicuous example. It is commonly 

 accepted as true that he has been attracted to Buzzards Bay 

 largely, if not solely, by our excellent fisuiug and the 

 incidental enjoyment which to him means health and bene- 

 ficial energy for serious work. He catches a moderatenumber 

 of fish, the market valueof which is not high, and allows none 

 to be wasted. To enable him to do this he has bought from 

 our people a large estate at a good round price, and on it he 

 pays a good round tax. He employs native boatmen during 

 the season aud native caretakers, gardeners, etc., throughout 

 the year. The establishment patronizes local tradesmen, 

 icemen, milkmen, farmers, etc. This year he builds a l"dge 

 and extensive additions to his present house. Native carpent- 

 ers, painters, masoDs, teamsters, etc., are given steady 

 employment. When these buildings are completed, our 

 assessors will visit them. The value will be added to the 

 valuation of the town. In so far as it extends, this increase 

 will benefit the whole town, the whole country, the entire 

 State. Every citizen of Bourne will either have more town 

 comforts for the same money or the same town comforts for 

 less money. Buzzards Bay would hardly be benefited by ex- 

 changing all this for the market value of the fish which the 

 President catches, whether considered as food or fertilizer. 

 This aspect of the fisheries brings our section in many times 

 the amount of revenue resulting from the market value of 

 all her fisheries, and it represents an industry which is great 

 and growing. Our people realize that itisan industry directly 

 dependent on the fishing, both for the measure of its value 

 especially iu regulating the duration of the season during 

 which the golden stream flows in our direction. It is there- 

 fore not surprising that our towns have insisted upon fish 

 preservation with ever increasing emphasis and keener 

 appreciation of the advantages accruing from it. It is 

 therefore not to be wondered at that Buzzards Bay is to-day 

 practically a unit against any chauge of the existing system; 

 and that any depreciation of sea-shore values so caused would 

 generally be regarded as practical confiscation. 



Minor Results. 



We have not only learned in Buzzards Bay the value of 

 fish preservation itself, but experience has given us some 

 definite results as to what legislation is valuable in securing 

 it. We have ascertained, for example, that any limitation 

 of the species of fish for which fishing is permissible is abso- 

 lutely delusive. If any fishing is permitted with a forbidden 

 device, no fishing with that device can be prevented. Under 

 the law of 1856, while seines and nets were forbidden in Buz- 

 zards Bay within certain limits, their use for bluefish was 

 prohibited. It was soon learned that all persons operating a 

 net or seine within these waters were invariably fishing for 

 bluefish. It was impossible to show the contrary. Officers 

 were unable to enforce the law. "Its teeth had been drawn." 

 Any such limitation was, therefore, dropped in subsequent 

 statutes. So in 1892, when using of the purse seine was abso- 

 lutely prohibited in Buzzards Bay, a certain fisherman of 

 Fairhaven, engaged in fishing for fresh cod, complained bit- 

 terly that he was unable to catch menhaden for bait in his 

 own town for his own vessels. He made out a case of 

 undoubted hardship and slight direct injury to the fisheries. 

 His legislative counsel suggested an act limiting the catch at 

 any one time to 50 barrels, required obtaining a license from 

 the selectmen of his town and other precautions against 

 injury. His bill was rejected by the Legislature, however, 

 on the sufficient ground that, as a practical matter, any such 

 restrictions were necessarily futile and incapable of enforce- 

 ment. If purse seining for bait were allowed, all purse 

 seining would be for bait. No officer would incur the 

 trouble and risk of boarding a vessel if any reasonable 

 chance existed that theconduct of the vessel could be lawful. 

 It is only when any fishing of a kind easily recognized is 

 absolutely forbidden within certain limits that evasions of 

 the law are found to be difficult and officers are enabled to 

 enforce it with the necessary confidence. For similar reasons, 

 any regulation of size of mesh, depth of seine, etc., are of no 

 value, and an attempt to allow short purse seines in shoal 

 waters would, so far as our experience goes, work irremedi- 

 able mischief. 



Neither have we found it possible in the absence of an effi- 

 cient ocean patrol, for which no facilities exist and which 

 could be maintained only at great expense for fish preserva- 

 tion to get any advantage from prohibiting nets during 

 certain days of the week. Most alewive fisheries of the bay 

 are so regulated, and such regulations, if they could be 

 adequately enforced, would be, as our people have claimed, 

 a good solution of the pound question in certain waters. In- 

 deed, it was the remedy suggested by Prof. S. F. Baird in 

 1872. But Buzzards Bay has tried that to its satisfaction. 

 In 1880, as has been said, it was provided that pounds should 

 not be in use between 6 A. M. Saturday and 6 P. M. Sunday 

 between May 1 and June 15. The idea would not work. The 

 law was a dead letter. No one was charged with its enforce- 

 ment, and laws do not enforce themselves. The expedient of 

 forbidding pounds absolutely during certain seasons of the 

 year would not seem open to these objections. It has not 

 been tried on Buzzards Bay. 



Our experience has amply demonstrated the advantages 

 of rewarding the diligence of our officers and citizens gener- 

 ally with a certain proportion of a large penalty or forfei- 

 ure. The conditions almost invariably attending the viola- 

 tion of such laws, especially at night, make it necessary in 

 the absence of a coast patrol boat, that an immense amount 

 of nerve and patience be. used to secure convictions. It is 

 perhaps inexpedient that this should be left to private en- 

 terprise, but as long as it is so left it is obviously necessary 

 that it should be enlisted and rewarded. No instance of an 

 unjust charge induced by hope of reward has been ever sus- 

 pected. In case of conviction, the labor, at best, is poorly 

 paid. 



Our Enemies. 



The only other possible value of the Buzzards Bay experi- 

 ment is a mention of the enemies which the fish preservation 

 has encountered. A more continuous legislative warfare 

 does not exist in Massachusetts. Each session of our Legis- 

 lature brings its annual attack. But to Buzzards Bay even 

 this also has its compensation. It bears eloquent testimony 

 to the success of the experiment; for the intensity of the 

 efforts to break down the fence is usually somewhat in pro- 

 portion to the richness of the pasture. The fish are there and 



