The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-12-29
Inland Fisheries.
Fish Culture i'm Maine-ReDort Of the Fish
missioners-Reading that Is Re
maFkable and Entertaining.

Commissioners, have submitted their annual
report to the Governor and Council. To say
that the report is entertainingis is faint praise.
Indeed, portion of it is "mighty amusin'
readin'.'
| The report was taken in hand for the purpose
of making an abstract. The title page YVES all
right, namely. "Ninth Report of the Commits
sOners of Fisheries" etc. The page is turned
over and we read the following:
| Never before, perhaps, within the memory
| OF any citizen OF our state, has our country
been visited with so severe business depression.
| While our politicians have been ever ready to
| ascribe it to the non adoption of this or that
policy, with as much wisdom as our other
| quacks to the non-use OF their patent medi-
| cines, Europe has felt the same pressure, and
| Germany aud France and England each in
| dulge their own favorite theories as to cause,
and their respective remedies as to cure
The reader stopped here in perplexity,
thinking that Treasurer Hatch's report had
been put out under the Fish Commissioners
title page; yet Mr.. Treasurer Hatch has not
INDUCED in that particular variety Of English
| given above in such reports as he has hereto
fore made public.
But we brace up and proceed to the follow
| ing:
''The late war called thousands from the field
OF labor to the field of battle
There can be no doubt as to the above. In-
deed, we may safely assert that everybody
| North and South, fully realizes the entire truth
| fulness of the statement-everybody except the
| party Barnacle with capital b. when the
crippled soldier asks for place to earn few
dollars to make life endurable But what has
| this to do with Fish?
But we read on:
| "The excitement of the camp, whether of
| the tented field or the forest, is blight upon
all future, patient, solitary, self-sustaning Ia
| bor"
| This declaration is not so self-e1ident In
deed, we are inclined to question it, when we
see every night in the Press composing room
three men in line who served three years
each on the tented field, all of whom appear
entirely capable of twelve hours per day of
"seli-sustaining labor" And there are thou
sands just like the three compositors, in Maine
who even don't take time to go fishing The
forest must refer to our lumber camps. Now
it is hardly fair to say that the thousands of
men who have been engaged in numbering are
incapable of "patent solitary, self-sustaining
| labor" Solitary labor is rather irksome to the
person who has ever been on the "tented field
or in the Forest
This is undoubtedly intended for that quite
numerous and hitherto respectable class of our
felow-citizens who have devoted their lives
aud talents to the law:
"Is it strange, that after the orm of battle
had passed away so many preferred fighting
| wordy battles at the bar, where even when
beaten they got their rations and their pay?'
And the following unquestionably refers to
insurance agents:
SIS it strange that so many were anxious to
insure the lives of others, whose own were not
worth dime; or property, whose own is not
worth dinner?"
The gentlemen of the Fish Commission have
undoubtedly been bored by insurance agents,
but what has that fact or the above statement
to do wish Fish?
After stating that the late Hon. Shepherd
Gary was won't to say that no young man who
had worked one winter in a lumber camp
would ever again cOntentedly work on a farm,
the Commissioners drop into the following:
'Place twenty young men on farms, and
same number in mills or factories; let severe
| business reaction or PRESSURE or hard
times from whatever cause created, visit our
country; the twenty farmers have food and
clothing, and warm, comfortable homes, while
the others are outcasts and wanderers-or in
/ the melancholy language of the day, 'tramps-'
Legislators, deal fairly with your farmers; let
US have less special legislation for other inter-
ests, and more for the men without whom your
fleets and your armies could not move. Have
| you ever thought of the fate of cities, of our
banks and traders were our farmers to strike?
Princes Shoddy, and Sawdust and Scoots
would all starve were the plow and hoe to stop.
Do more for agriculture and the problem Of
our emigrating population will be solved. If
we have fewer colossal fortunes we shall have
| a greater average of contented, happy homes.
Fewer villages of contract built cottages for
operatives, presided over by the shingle pal
aces of the owners. Legislation and lumber
have sacrificed the rights of the masses and
degraded labor. Every barrel of potatoes,
every chicken, every egg of hen, has now to
pay its tax for the support of some dozen greasy
loafers or forestalers, before the consumer is
allowed to receive it from the hands of the pro-
ducer. Do something to abolish this crying
evil Do something that will allow the farmer.
the producer, to meet and deal with the con-
| sumer, and receive the honest profits of his
own toll The producer and consumer are now
both robbed We have abolished slavery let
us manumit the poor farmer, and the poor con-
| sumer.
Hoop-la! every egg OF hen." Not SO,
Messrs. Commissioners. There are several
farmers in this vicinity who sell their crop of
''egg of hen" to the boarding house people di-
rect. We dare say that several hundred "egg
Of hen" do not pay tax to ''a dozen
greasy loafers or forestallers," whoever they
may be. But what has egg of hen to do with
Fish? And who is preventing the producer
and consumer from embracing? The Legisla-
ture? How? Where? When? Why did not
Messrs. Commissioners suggest to the Legisla-
ture So ne means by which the farmer in Aroos-
took can sell his potatoes to the consumer lin
Portland direct-whereby the one can meet the
other apd wrestle about the price-some India
rubber arrangement by which, by simply wish
ing, Cinderella like, honest producer and
swindled consumer can be brought in contact
in a moment, though miles apart now? That
would be craftsmanship. But, pray, what has
all this to do with Fish? But Messrs. Com
missloners, we fear that people of average
sense win mock this fine writing of yours and
pronounce it the stale dryel of cheap dem a.
gogue.
Having delivered themselves of the above
remarkable effusion-at once insulting the ex.
soldiers lawyers, lumbermen, manufacturers
and greasy middlemen, invoking the legislators
in report addressed to the Governor and
Council, the Commissioners turn their atten-
ton to Fish, and in doing so settle dowk to
their work and give deal of interesting in
formation. They say:
People are now turning their attention to the
production of food; they are now beginning To
realize the mighty wrong which was perpe-
trated when our rivers were DISTRACTED by spe-
cial privileges granted to individuals aud cor
poratons, and the rights of the people sacri-
feed This need not have been. There need
| be, there is no natural antagonism between
fish and factories; between the full use of every
, | pound of water-power and the perfect protec
!, | tion of every pound of fish There was no ex
cuse for terminating in a single year, by one
act of legislation, greater amount of food
+ value, that cost the state not one cent in its
, | production, than all the lumber OF Maine was
| worth! The fish of the Penobscot or the Ken.
nebec was worth, is worth more than all the
,, lumber n either of those rivers And yet We
| might have had the whole, with the increased
j prosperity OF both, and the greater aggregate
! | wealth OF the state.
, The Com missioners have distributed this yeal
in the waters of Maine some 100000 salmon
| fry. They have received from the United
States 100000 eggs of the California salmon,
(Salmo quinnat) from these were hatched about
$4,000 healthy young fry. These eggs were a