practical papers—Fish Culture. 
4°9 
one that the supply has decreased with alarming rapidity, and 
that at the present rate of failure the day cannot be far distant 
when it will cease entirely. It is hardly possible that the facts 
concerning these and other fish can be generally known, or they 
would give rise to an intelligent interest, which now seems to be 
almost wholly wanting. 
Representations have been made to the legislatures of our va- 
rious states, and to the general government, in times' past, by 
those who were aware of the facts and of their importance. But 
it is only lately that any disposition has been shown to listen to 
the warning and save these sources of wealth to our people. 
This is not the place for statistics, but a few brief facts may serve 
to show how the supply of the white-fish is diminishing. 
Twenty years ago a haul of five thousand fish at one time, in a 
seine, was not an uncommon occurrence. How the seine is not 
used, because no fish can be caught in that way. Twenty years 
ago the wholesale price was about $2.50 per hundred fish, retail¬ 
ing at 5 cents per pound; now they wholesale at $17 per hun¬ 
dred, and retail at 12 to 25 cents per pound. The improvements 
in methods of capturing the fish also show the scarcity which 
made these improvements necessary. Twenty years ago fishing 
with the seine was the only method in use. But now, as I said 
/* 
before, the seine cannot be used, except, perhaps, at one or two 
points on the whole chain of the great lakes, and is, in fact, so 
far as white-fish are concerned, an obsolete method of fishing. 
Next in order came gill-nets. This carried the war into the 
very home of the white-fish, being often set in three or four hun¬ 
dred feet of water. With these nets the catch became again, at 
first, productive. But the nets fished over every foot of ground, 
one boat often fishing six miles; and experience showed that three 
gangs of nets, of six miles each, would use up a fishery at any 
one point in eight years. 
Again, the fish became so scarce that gill-netting would hardly 
pay, and the trap and pound-nets were invented. The trap-nets- 
are of the same nature as the pound-nets, being only on a smaller 
scale. The pound-nets consist of a long leader with a pound or 
trap at the end. The fish run along this leader, or are led by it, 
into the trap at the end, from which they cannot escape. The 
