PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
341 
in large numbers, resulting in their biting and injuring each other in their contests 
for food. If not fed regularly it is quite difficult to keep the lobsters in the inclosure, 
but when jiroperly supplied they seem contented and improve both in appearance and 
weight: yet it is not generally protitable to feed them for an increase in weight alone, 
the protit coming from the ability to place them on the market when the prices are 
the highest. In catching them seines, pots, or beam trawls are employed. The latter 
are usually 12 feet across, with 18-inch runners. If jiroperly attended, the mortality 
is small and the lobsters improve in weight and condition. It is estimated that in 
November, 1898, there were 700,000 lobsters retained in the ponds or inclosures in 
Maine. 
At several of the fishery ports along the Gulf of Mexico there are small inclosures 
for retaining green turtle and terrapin. These are usually 400 or 500 square feet 
in area, and are made by driving rough poles into the ground near the shore, where 
the water is 6 or 8 feet deep at low tide, connecting and bracing them by nailing a 
strip along the line near the top, the poles being 1 or 2 inches from each other and 
sufficiently long to iiroject a few feet above the surface of the water. For convenience 
in handling the turtle these pens are generally constructed adjacent to the lauding pier 
leading to a market house. The turtle are placed in the pen and removed therefrom 
by means of a block and tackle attached to a swinging arm. They are generally fed on 
algaq fish, etc., until it is desirable to market them, when they are placed in boxes, 
barrels, or otherwise secured, and shipped without further care. 
WELL-SMACKS. 
Well-smacks were introduced in England in 1712, being first used at Harwich, 
where 12 were in operation as early as 1720, but the idea seems to have originated 
with the Dutch fishermen many years before. According to Dr. Fuller’s “History of 
Berwick,” well-smacks were used in carrying live salmon from Berwick to London 
prior to 1740, those vessels being of about 40 tons burden each. 
Previous to the general use of ice on vessels, which began about 1840, most of the 
New England market vessels, especially those in the halibut fishery, were constructed 
with a Avell in the hold, in which the fish were retained alive until delivered at the 
fishing port. The use of well-smacks, or welled-smacks, in the halibut fishery began 
at New Loudon, Conn., and Greenport, N. Y., about 1820, and by 1840 the fishery had 
extended to Georges Bank. Before the emi)loyment of these vessels the halibut 
fishery was prosecuted only during cold weatber, the fish being carried in bulk in the 
hold. 
The first w^ell-smack at Gloucester was built in 1835 and was designed to carry 
about 12,000 pounds of halibut. The fish were caught by means of hand lines and 
were handled very carefully, being idaced in the well immediately on removal from the 
water. Those dying before reaching market, through injuries or otherwise, were sold 
at about one-fourth the price of live halibut. On account of the greater convenience of 
using ice and the general adoption of trawl lines in the halibut fishery the well-smacks 
have been entirely superseded by tight-bottomed vessels. 
Formerly nearly all fishing vessels running to the New York market during cold 
weather were constructed with wells. But the dwindling of the market cod fishery 
from that port, due to competition with Boston and other New England iioints having 
the benefit of the trade with drying establishments, has led to a large decrease in the 
