The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1877-04-21
Our Game and Food Fish.

States should now have a Board Of Fish
Commissioners in nearly every State aud
Territory; that particular attention should
be given to the preservation Of such fish
as remain in our waters, and TO their in
crease in numbers and variety by means of
scientific artificial propagation. Professor
Agassz may, in this sense, be considered
the father OF Seth Green, as Oersted and
Henry we're the parents Of Morse and
Magnetic Telegraphy. The ardent con-
tagious enthusiasm, the beautiful researches
and the persuasive powers Of exposition
which Agassiz brought to the study of
ichthyology in its purely scientific aspects,
led thousands Of practical men, who other
wise would never have thought about it,
to give their particular attention TO the
subject in its more various and more con-
crete relations. Agassiz has related some.
where, with great appreciativeness, the
interest which the rude fishermen Of the
New England coast took in his studies and
researches, the pains aud labor they would
be at to fetch or send him rare specimens,
aud the shrewd information they were
always able to give him in regard to the
habitat and manners of their prey.
Our Fish Commission here in Maryland
seems to be excellently organized for work
and to be doing its work excellently well.
We have read MIR. Ferguson'sr report care
fully, and we think that he has acted both
judiciously and vigorously throughout, and
that a great deal has already been accom-
plished. Evidently, the work was not un-
dertaken too soon, and it ought to be
pressed forward now without hindrances
or interruptions. The Commission can
and should act more or less in conjunction
with Professor Baird, Of the Smithsonian,
and the Academy of Sciences here, so as
to push scientific investigation along with
aud alongside of practical effort. Science
has still great deal to tell us which it is
important that those interested in the
preservation of our Maryland fisheries
should know as soon as possible. For in-
stance, in regard to the oyster-the source
of one of our most profitable industries,
the food of the multitude, the luxury Of
the gourmet, the envy of all people who do
not live contiguous TO the Chesapeake Bay
there have been two opinions, both ye-
hementy urged, upon tbesubjeet Of dredg-
ing. One is that dredging destroys the
oysters by turning over and killing twenty
where one is captured-the other that this
turning over process and the spreading of
the young fry continually, increases both
the oysters on particular areas and the ex-
tent of the areas themselves The Fish
Commission aud the Academy Of Sciences
ought to ascertain the truth about this at
once, for legislation is certainly called for,
one way or another, in the premises
There are several other matters in which
science and the Commission may 60 hand in
hand with much profit to the community.
In some respects the disappearance of food
fish is tax upon the public, since it makes
food in general higher by diminishing the
quantity and the variety of it, The cheap
bunch of perch, pike, or taylor, the dozen
of crabs for ten cents; aud the bushel of
oysters for fifty cents, necessarily must have
a steady and constant tendency to keep
down the prices Of butchers meat and
poultry. The Commission and the scien-
lists may be able TO bring US back to those
halcyon days, when you might buy from
off the Crock Hall packet" bunch of
broad "back back" perch from Gresham
Hall" as heavy as you could carry, for
twenty-five cents, and when beef was con
sequently still only 'baron' and did not
aspire to kingship and absolute dominion
over the market
Those were the days when there were
still "gudgeons at the Relay" and at Her
ring Run, besides few at the Viaduet
bridge over Gwinns' Falls; when yard long
eels could be taken at sunset at the corner
of Light and Pratt streets, and white perch
at Buchanan's wharf Then the upper
Spring Gardens" abounded with ''croak.
ers, and crabs enough to fill ''peter-
boa" could be picked up at the old "Fish-
house. At the same remote era, select
herrings would be wagoned TO your door
for 81 so thousand, and the common
run" Of shad were not cheap at three ceuts
piece.
The strictly "game' fish have disap-
peared still more rapidly, aud probably
quite as lamentably, as the food fish. But
for the newly-introduced black bass, there
would be no more fish worth angling for.
What satire it is to him who has had
to fill his game-bag with trout on the
Blackwater or has filed his basket before
breakfast in the sparkling mountain streams
of Pennsylvania, to watch one Of our an
glers, propelling himself, with elbows and
leg-long boots, across the frosty rime of
fifty yards of a meadow in early April, at
early morning, to get to poor "hole" and
make one poor cling" to drag out, or miss,
one poor three.ineh-long trout And the
diminishing, the line rock fishing, the line
perch-6shing-all gone equally--let us
hope, not forever Our country streams
are actually denuded of fish, excepting
only few chubs and minnows that manage
from year to year to escape the clumsy
pumpkins net, dragged through mile of
stream to pick up peck of smallfry for a
Saturday nights feast
The nets, indeed, itwould seem, are one
great source of the trouble and of the dis
appearance of fish everywhere, as CORES.
pondents have pointed out to us. The Dot
fishermen, like the pot hunters, are greedy,
aud have no respect for game as game, nor
as food either. So much the more reason
for controlling them by mild but efficient
legislation. In our deep-water fisheries
both the rock and the perch threaten to
disappear almost entirely before the ''pound
net" the spot net, and the immense
machinery seines Of the wholesale fishing
companies,
The "pound net" is FISH pound, or FISH
weir, answering to the cattle pound, or the
wild beast pound, into which regular
current drives in all animals, but from
which no current guides them to escape.
The old-fashioned wicket weir is reported
L.. IL. L