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codfishery, aggregating a tonnage of 56,919 tons, and carrying crews of 7,966 men. The mackerel fishery employed 284 vessels, with a tonnage of 17,038 tons, and crews of 2,272 men. The total number of vessels engaged in the cod and mackerel fishery was 1,422, of an aggregate tonnage of 74,957 tons, and carrying 10,238 fishermen. In addition, Massachusetts had a fleet of 514 vessels in the whale fishery, carrying 12,336 men.

The records of the fishery industries of the other states of New England are very unsatisfactory. The fishermen of Rhode Island carried on a business from time to time catching menhaden and developing oyster beds. Owing to the high price of paint oils in 1812, the inhabitants of the State began to use fish oil in place of the more costly material. The process of extracting oil from fish was improved in 1820 by first boiling the fish in kettles. Ten years later further progress was made by the inception of steam-cooking. Between 1835 and 1840, the refuse parts of menhaden, known as chum, became of value as fertilizer. The introduction of the purse-seine for taking the fish, probably before 1850, was revolutionary and stimulated the industry greatly. Between 1855 and 1860, presses for separating the oil and water from the chum came into use and were of additional economic importance.1

The practice of introducing oysters from Chesapeake Bay and laying them down in the shore waters of Rhode Island dates from the early part of this period. The oyster industry in Rhode Island flourished with increasing interest until the Civil War, when it decreased principally because the southern supply of oysters for planting was cut off by the opening of hostilities. The value of the oyster fishery of the State for 1860 is placed at $382,170, by Prof. Goode. The general fisheries of the State for that year 1 Goode, Sec. V, Vol. I, pp. 306-08.

yielded 118,611 barrels of menhaden and other fish for fertilizer, worth $27,817; about $25,000 worth of food fish; and $11,692 worth of clams and other shell fish. Accord

ing to the State census for 1865, the product of the fisheries of Rhode Island that year was as follows: fish seined for manure and oil, 154,468 barrels, worth $126,035; fish caught for food, 2,462,360 pounds, worth $121,094; 31,697 bushels of clams, 72,895 bushels of oysters, and 42,900 pounds of lobsters, having a total value of $118,655. The aggregate value of the fish products of Rhode Island for 1865 was $365,784.

The Connecticut River seems always to have been famous for its shad fishery, which was pursued with profit as far up its course as Hadley, Massachusetts. It is reported that in 1801 there were as many as fourteen wharves at South Hadley, where shad were taken by means of scoop nets and seines, sometimes as many as 1,200 at a single haul. In 1848, it was not an uncommon thing for a man to take from 2,000 to 3,000 in a day. The method of pound fishing was introduced in 1849, after which the fishery increased all along the coast.

Menhaden were caught and the oil extracted as early as 1850 or 1852 at an establishment at Fort Hale, New Haven Harbor. The discovery of the process of extracting the oil by steam was claimed by a Connecticut man as early as 1852 or 1853.1 In 1840, Connecticut was second only to Massachusetts in the amount of capital invested in the fisheries. It is probable, however, that a large part of the capital was employed in the whale fishery, which was carried on principally from New London.

The catch of menhaden for Connecticut can not be ascertained for any town or for any period of years. In 1851, five million of the fish were caught at Westbrook, but the industry subsequently declined. In the earlier half of the 1 Goode, Sec. V, Vol. I, p. 389.

century, salmon fisheries were carried on in the rivers of the State, but to a less extent than either the shad or the menhaden fisheries.

Fair Haven, Connecticut, was one of the first places in New England to import oysters from New Jersey, and later from Virginia, to be transplanted in northern waters for additional growth. The Virginia trade began between 1830 and 1840, and there was a rapid development of the industry. The oyster establishments of Fair Haven had branch houses in the principal inland cities as far west as Chicago and St. Louis. In 1857-58, from 200 to 250 schooners were employed in supplying the establishments of Connecticut with clams from the Chesapeake. In 1850, one of the more enterprising merchants of Fair Haven transferred his business to warehouses nearer the source of supply of oysters and opened branch houses at Baltimore. Others followed the lead, so that it came about, according to Ernest Ingersoll, that all the great Baltimore firms of old standing originated in Fair Haven. The result was that the oyster trade retrograded; new changes in method came into use, and different results followed.

CHAPTER XI

INSHORE FISHERIES-THE HERRING FAMILY

The fisheries of the herring family most common to the New England coast are the common herring, the shad, the alewife, and the menhaden. Other species of these occur, as the branch herring, the glut herring, and the hickory shad or tailor herring; but for our purpose it will be sufficient to consider the more common kinds. The herring family is a fish of great importance commercially. This value is due to the wide range of the fish, the great abundance of the supply, the small amount of capital necessary for catching the fish, and to the great variety of food values and commercial purposes for which it is used. It has been for ages the poor man's food. For centuries the people of Europe have drawn immense quantities of the fish from the sea with no apparent diminution of the supply. As food for man it is used fresh, pickled, smoked and canned, being labeled as sardines, mackerel, and trout; it is frozen to be used as bait on the deep-sea banks making possible the prosperity of the bank fishery of our country; thousands of tons of fertilizer have been used in restoring worn-out farm lands; and millions of gallons of oil have been used by painters as the basis of their paints.

The different species of the fish are found on the banks in immense schools; others frequent our bays and harbors, entering into almost every water area along the Atlantic seaboard as far north as Labrador; still others ascend rivers for hundreds of miles, bringing to the very doors of inland people the fresh products of the sea, Not only do the

last named fish increase the ease by which they may be taken, but their very presence in inshore waters attracts other fish of a deep-sea variety and renders possible the pursuit of bank fishery by fishermen of small means.

In our country, all varieties of the herring family have been caught from the earliest days. At first their chief importance was for fertilizer and for fresh food. After the middle of the last century, their commercial importance was greatly increased by the discovery of the value of the oil, by their use as bait for deep-sea fisheries, and subsequently for their value in the sardine canning industry. The records of the fishery are intermittent, as no accurate attempt at recording their catch and value was begun until after the close of the Civil War. There is little doubt but that this family of fish will continue for generations to be of importance in our fisheries, for the demand is greater than the supply, and the supply is of such a kind that there is little likelihood of the abundance being diminished materially by the annual catch of fish.

THE HERRING.

The true herring, sometimes called the sea herring, or the English herring, ranks among the foremost of the world's food-fishes. They occur on the Atlantic coast from Labrador on the north to Cape Cod, occasionally even to Cape Hatteras, on the south. It is probable that these schools resort to inshore grounds for the purpose of spawning. The greater abundance of herring north of Cape Cod makes it essentially a northern fish. On the east coast of Maine young herring are canned and sold as sardines.

In America, as in Europe, the herring spawn at different seasons of the year. According to Mr. Earll,' they spawn

1 The Herring Fishery and the Sardine Industry, Goode, Sec. V, Vol. I, p. 402.

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