Smyrna times., 1886-01-06
Our Shad Fisheries.
THE SUPPLY SHOULD BE KEPT UP BY
ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION.

ARIlflClAL PhORAGAIlONs
Col. Marshall Mcdonald, in paper
recently read before the Biological So
ciety at Washington, and published as
a supplement to Science, gave some in |
teresting statistics concerning the |
shad fisheries of the Atlantic coast |
rivers from Cape Cod to Maine, and of
the Chesapeake bay and its tributaries
to show the necessity of keeping up
the supply of shad by artificial prOpa-
cation. In his statistics he compares
the catch of shad in 1880 and 1885
within the water area above described.
He shows that, in 1880, the aggregate
catch of this fine fish was g, $40, 1876, and
in 1885, 4'17O,124, the increase being
nearly 8per cent, or 1,O50,000 pounds,
and the value of the increase $72,53O.
At the same time he shows that while
computing the entire catch, there was
this important increase. The waters
in which this increase was found were
the Hudson river and the Delaware
bay. the Chesapeake bay outside the
mouths of the rivers, and the Kappa
hammock and James rivers,i especially
the James. In the Connecticut river
the decrease in the catch in 1885, as
compared with that of 1880, was
twenty-five ahd a-half per cent, and in
the Chesapeake bay, including its
tributaries, twenty-One per cent. Run
ming over in detail the increase and de-
crease in the Chesapeake bay and its
tributaries, the figures indicate an in
crease of twenty per cent, in the salt
water catch of the bay, of eighty-six
per cent. in the Rappahannock river,
and of a hundred and thirty-One per
cent. in the James river. But, in the
Susquehanna river, there was de-
crease of sixty-fve and a-half per cent.
| and in the Potomac river a decrease of
seventy-fOur per cent, the aggregate
decrease in Maryland waters in the
catch of 1885 being, as we have said
above twenty-One per cent. The rea-
son assigned by Col. Mcdonald for the
decrease of shad in the rivers we have
named is the extensive use of pound
nets in the bay. In the Hudson, and
Delaware and in the James river,
where the catch of shad in 1885 was
largely in excess of that of 1880, no
pound nets are used, and in the Rap
pahannOck, which also showed an in
crease, one half of the catch was in
brackish waters. The catch in the
Susquehanna, says Mr.. Mcdonald, was
GA, 900 in 1880. In 1885 it declined to
$4,000. In the Potomac in 1880 the
catch was 552,857, in 1886, ,697.
In 1880 there were in the Chesapeake
bay $50 pound nets set in the track fol-
lowed by the shad along the Western
shore, and through these the shad had
to run a gauntlet up to the mouth of
the rivers. Now there are 1000 pound
nets occupying the western shore of
the bay and excluding the fish from
the fresh water" The effect of this is
to intercept the fish before they reach
their spawning grounds, and to so di-
minish production, wherever pound
nets are used, as would ultimately lead
to the extinction of shad in those
waters, if the annual loss, largely &C
cruing from this cause were not made
up by the practice of artificial propa
tiOn, which has been going on for some
years past. Before 1871 the shad were
entirely taken in fresh water. Now
One-half are caught in salt water
all the latter and part of the former
being taken before they can reach
their spawning grounds. The de
structiOn of the supply by the use o
pound nets is therefore immense, anC
if our shad fisheries are not to fail al
together they can only be maintained
by steadily keeping up the supply BY
artificial propagation, or by adOptin,
: the law of New York, which prohibit
y the use of pound nets. In the Hudson
/ the Delaware, and in James river
i where no pound nets are used, tn
catch of shad in 1885 was thirty-thre
per cent. in the Hudson, thirty-six il
the Delaware, and a hundred an,
. thirty per cent. in the James rive
g greater in 1880. These facts full,
e bear out the conclusions reached b,
= Col. Mcdonald, that 1.-THE effect of tn
salt water fishery carried on witt
pound nets is to diminish natural re
production" (by intercepting the shal
while on their way to the rivers to de
|, pOsit their SPAWN, "and to invoke ar
tificial propagation as a necessary ali
s to the fisheries" In conclusion, h
says, if all shad were excluded from
our rivers for three or four years with
out artificial propagation, the specie
. would be exterminated." His explain
alton of the evils wrought by the on
h thousand pound nets set in the trac
" followed by the shad in coming up tn
bay accounts for the complaints of tn
y fishermen on the Susquehanna and tn
n Potomac that artificial propagation ha
ot not benefited them, and shows why
p is that, so far as they are concerned
8 the catch of shad in these rivers
yearly getting smaller.-SaIisbury AC
: Uertiser.
IL The hens should flock together an
&c. proceed at once to boycott the individ
ual who has developed an inventio
for producing artificial eggs at a prof
for six cents a dozen. Atan exhibitio
= given by the inventor in New YOr
Iaet xyaaL tho artificial auOs vva,