FISHERIES OF THE NEW ENGLAND STATES. 
109 
weirs has had no appreciable effect on the smoking of herring, the smokehouses being 
more neglected than ever before. This condition is due to the circumstance that 
herring can be sold fresh for bait at better prices than would result from smoking 
them. The demand for bait in this section is now so constant and so great that the 
weir fishermen have not been able to meet it, and an extensive herring fishery witb 
gill nets has been inaugurated within the past three years to supplement the weir 
fishery. At the Cranberry Isles and also in the vicinity of Southwest Harbor and Bar 
Harbor large numbers of bank and shore vessels are baited each year, and the practice 
of taking bait in this vicinity is annually becoming more popular and of increasing 
importance to the deep-sea fisheries. Prior to the building of weirs there was little or 
no baiting done here, and vessels were obliged to resort to more distant places and 
often had to go to the provinces at great loss of time. 
The marked effect which the expiration of the reciprocity treaty with Canada has 
had on the development of the fisheries and fishery industries of the entire eastern 
coast of Maine has been nowhere more noticeable than in the increased facilities afforded 
American vessels to procure an abundant supply of bait in home ports through the 
building of brush weirs. 
The soft clam . — This important species ranks third in value in the shore fisheries 
of Maine, being surpassed by the herring by only a few hundred dollars. In the table 
the yield of fresh clams is given at 2,207,072 pounds, valued at $72,359; these figures 
include the clams sold fresh for food, and also those which are subsequently canned. 
Much the larger part of the clam product is salted by the fishermen to be used as bait 
in the line fisheries. As, shown by the table, 6,181,600 pounds of clam meats were 
thus prepared, for which the fishermen obtained $126,820. The value of salt clams as 
bait makes this fishery one of the most important in the State. The output in 1889 
represented 30,908 barrels of salt bait, with an average value of $4.10 per barrel. 
The cod, haddock, hake, and other ground fish . — The catch of the species commonly 
designated “ ground fish,” including cod, cusk, haddock, hake, halibut, and pollock, 
will, if taken in the aggregate, have a value somewhat greater than the herring, 
although no three of these species together yield the fishermen so much as the last- 
named fish. Among the ground fish taken in the shore fisheries the cod ranks first, 
with 3,882,584 pounds of fresh and salted fish, worth, at first hands, $89,358. Had- 
dock come next in value, with $52,327, though the quantity of fresh and salted haddock 
sold, viz, 3,169,351 pounds, is less than the catch of hake, which amounted to 3,632,933 
pounds, but sold for only $42,480. The yield of pollock was 1,341,549 pounds, with a 
value of $13,669, followed by the halibut with 159,910 pounds, all of which was sold 
fresh for $11,064, and the cusk with 304,659 pounds, valued at $4,121. 
The smelt . — One of the most important food species occurring in the coast rivers 
of Maine is the smelt, a fish whose value to the State is second only to that of the 
lobster, herring, clam, and cod. It is by far the most important river fish in Maine, 
easily surpassing in economic value the salmon, shad, alewife, and other species that 
enter fresh water. The quantity taken in 1889 was 1,045,385 pounds, worth $74,077, 
or an average of over 7 cents per pound. The specially important rivers in which 
smelt are taken are the Bagaduce, Penobscot, and Kennebec. 
