THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
211 
Now, Mr. Speaker, there is the Judgment of a thoroughly disiuterested man in the presence of 
a proposition to deprive the pooiile of this country of an almost unlimited supply of food for a 
period of three mouths, and a groat number of tishermen who are entitled, as the gentlemen from 
Maine has well said, to great consideration at the hands of this House in view of their difficulties with 
Canada; there is his opinion that this bill could not be said to have any benehcent elfect whatever, 
that he does not know and is not able to state what the effect would be. That is the opinion 
expressed hero. 
Now he has an assistant. Professor Brown Goode, who was sent out in charge of the American 
exhibits to the Loudon Fisheries Exposition and received a medal. I presume it will scarcely be 
questioned that Professor Goode and Professor Baird are two among the greatest experts of the world 
in this line. I wrote him a letter myself later upon this subject, for I was ignorant of the effect of 
it, and asked his opinion. In his response he says: 
United .States National Museum, Washington, April 12, 1886. 
Dear Sir: I have never been conviueed that the aliunihuice of mackerel along our eastern coast ha.s been, in past 
year.s, diniiniaheil through the agency of man, I am not, therefore, prepared to saj' that I believe that the prosecution of 
the spring mackerel fishery will lead to its own destruction. In a report upon the history of the mackerel, iiublished in 
1883 by the Commissioner of Fisheries, I reviewed the evidence at that time in existence, and I have not yet seen any 
reason for changing the views therein e.xpre3.sed. I mail you herewith a copy of this report. 
Believe me, yours, very respectfully, 
Hon. Abram S. Hewitt. 
G. Brown Goode. 
In this report, which I have here on my desk, giving the facts and conclusions which are the 
results of careful research, discussing as it does all of the phases of the mackerel question, and in 
this public document, which is at the disposal of any gentleman, nil of these facts will be found fully 
set forth and sustained. 
Now, the gentleman from Maine says it is necessary to have a close period for mackerel. That 
is what he wants. That is a very plausible idea, Mr. Speaker, and 1 was originally taken in by it 
myself. Every man who has ever approached the subject has thought that there ought to be a close 
period for animals to breed in. But when you examine the facts you will find that there are two 
classes of ocean fishes. Those which come into our rivers and seek the fresh water for spawning 
purposes need a close period, because if all were taken, as the salmon have been taken at the mouth 
of the river when running in to spawn, there could never be a return current of young fishes after 
the spawning season. 
Hence we have wisely provided for close periods for the ocean fishes that seek the fresh water to 
spawn. But there is another class of ocean fishes, such as mackerel, herring, the cod, the bluefish, 
and the menhaden, that never spawn in fresh water, that never come to the rivers or coast to spawn. 
And in regard to the mackerel there is this remarkable fact: They spawn upon the surface, upon the 
open ocean, upon the broad surface of the ocean. Their spawn is at the mercy of the winds and the 
waves; no doubt wisely so. No doubt in the order of Providence that is the method which He has 
taken for the production of certain kinds of fish which the energy of man has never yet been able to 
destroy. The herring fisheries of to-day are more productive than they have ever been in any previous 
period of man’s history since we have had any record. The mackerel fishery of to-day is more 
productive than it ever has been in any previous period. When you remember the spawn of a single 
mackerel produces 500,000 eggs you will understand how small a quantity is necessary to produce the 
number of mackerel we take in a single season; it is safe to say less than 500,000 mackerel would 
produce the entire catch of 25,000,000 of mackerel supposed to be taken in a single season. 
So you see that man can not, by any contrivance whatever, destroy these fish which come in large 
schools. Do gentlemen here know the magnitude and size of these schools which are sent upon our 
coasts for the express purpose of giving us cheap food? One fisherman I saw told me he had met this 
year a school of mackerel 7 miles long and 2 miles broad, and packed so densely that it seemed to him 
as if the water could find no place among them; and yet this is the kind of animal life which the 
gentleman from Arkansas and the gentleman from Maine say is worried by the attempts of the fish- 
ermen to catch a few of them, and is driven off the coast in consequence of it. There is no possibility 
of worrying them. When taken by one of these purse-net seines, they are scoojied in, as many as the 
net can hold, put on the vessel, and brought into port, and the rest go no one knows where. Even 
the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Reed] admits that when they spawn on his coast, the mackerel 
disappear for a time. He did not tell us whether they disappeared before or after they spawn. But 
the mackerel disappear. Where have they gone? Into Fulton Market? 
