THE SMELTS 
261 
of Canada was restricted to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, at least so far as 
export to the United States was concerned. The reports for the years 1871 to 1878, 
both inclusive, show a constantly rapid increase in quantity of smelts and a corre- 
sponding enhanced gross value. The increase appears to have been attributable to 
more intensive fishing operations. The price per pound remained almost constant 
from 1873 to 1877, but in 1878 a 50 per cent drop in the price received by the ship- 
pers occurred, and Venning states that only 1 cent a pound was paid to the fish- 
ermen. This situation was due to an oversupply. 
Year 
All Canada 
New Brunswick 
Pounds 
Value 
Pounds 
Value 
Price per 
pound 
1871 
520, 146 
584, 160 
810, 499 
1, 156, 440 
1, 451. 580 
1. 990. 825 
2, 264, 002 
2, 715, 107 
485, 100 
495, 500 
697, 520 
915, 600 
1, 086, 280 
1,559,200 
1, 950, 700 
2, 426, 952 
1872 
$10, 527. 00 
41,851. 20 
64, 936. 00 
65, 176. 00 
93, 552. 00 
117, 042. 00 
72, 808. 56 
1873 
$48, 623. 94 
69, 391. 00 
87, 094. 80 
98, 228. 40 
13, 584. 12 
90, 097. 86 
$0. 06 
.06 
.06 
.06 
.06 
.03 
1874 
1875 
1876 
1877 
1878 
Twenty-five years later the same inspector, then retired (Venning, 1902), after 
referring to former abundance and their use as fertilizer, said that since the I. C. R. 
had furnished a means of reaching Provincial and United States markets, frozen 
smelts had formed a large export from all the northern countries, and in 1901 the 
aggregated shipment from New Brunswick amounted to 7,863,000 pounds. Samuels 
(1904) wrote: 
I have before me a clipping from a St. John paper, which contains a communication from Richi- 
bucto, N. B., that shows how important the smelt packing industry has become in that place, 
which is one of many that are scattered along the shores of the bay. It reads as follows: 
“ The smelt fishing season, which opened yesterday, is the biggest thing in this part of the 
country. Although it is carried on but a little over two months in every twelve, it does more real 
good in that time than all the other industries put together can do in a whole year. The secret of 
its beneficial effect is found in the system by which the business is conducted. Other kinds of 
fishing, lumbering and such things are nearly all done by due method, but the man who attempts 
to take a hand in buying smelts without cash on the spot, ‘is not in it.’ * * * . 
“Following the catching of the fish comes the preparation of them for market. It is nothing 
unusual for small boys to earn from a dollar to a dollar and a half a day packing the smelts in boxes. 
No matter in what way you are connected with the work it is cash. Forty on fifty thousand 
dollars emptied out within a radius of ten miles in a few months, means something, and the man 
or woman who cannot talk about smelts from now to the middle of February, is of no use in the 
vicinity.” 
Samuels stated that the net used in seining smelts is pretty close-meshed, and 
large enough to inclose several thousand pounds at a haul. He said : 
The struggles of the fishes as folds of the net encompass them more and more closely, together 
with the weight of the captives as they become compact, forces the spawn from them, and that to such 
an extent, that I have seen the beach where the seining was done covered with the eggs in winrows 
looking like so much saw dust. 
An article in the Fishing Gazette (New York) for November 24, 1906, asks the 
question : 
44699—27 18 
