NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 
251 
to-day as much of a bar to the upward migration of salmon as when Jasper Danker 
made the entry in his journal in 1680, which I have quoted. Baker Falls, on the 
main river, has been supposed to be one of the causes why salmon never frequented 
the river at the time they ran into the Connecticut. These falls stopped the shad and 
and it has been said that they would stop salmon. Possibly they would, but I visited 
the falls with the late Commissioner McDonald and we were both of the opinion that 
it was possible for salmon to surmount them on the proper stage of water. 
Why the Hudson was not originally a salmon stream when the Connecticut, a 
neighboring river, was, I shall not attempt to explain. It may have been that Cohoes 
and other falls on the main river and its tributaries operated as a bar to keep them 
from their proper spawning-grounds, but one thing has been fully demonstrated: The 
Hudson River of to-day, with its sewage from towns and poisons from mills and 
factories, does not deter salmon from entering from the sea once the fry are planted in 
its headwaters, and with fishways in all the obstructions, natural and artificial, it 
could be made a self-sustaining salmon river if the netters would obey the law, while 
the State fisheries commission aided nature in keeping up the supply of young fish 
by artificially hatching the eggs. Colonel McDonald told me on more than one occasion 
that if the Hudson were open to salmon, and proper efforts were made to keep up the 
supply of young fish, and netting regulations were enforced, the river would from its 
salmon add $100,000 a year of profit to the State financially, while largely augmenting 
the food supply. 
Glens Falls, New York. 
