The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1890-05-10
ON THE PENoBScoT.
Smells Caught by the Ton-Sheep
and Cattle Eat Fish.

and Cattle Eat Fish.
81 don't suppose you'd believe there
was a part of this glorious country of
ours where the sheep and cattle eat tom
Gods, would youl" asked the genial Capt.
Enoch Spicer, an old-time skipper of the
coast line service. "Of course you
wouldn't, but it's true, all the same, and
you can see it done any winter by just
taking run up in the Penobscot country,
State of Maine.
"Where do the best smelts that ever
made frying pan smell good come from!
From the Penobscot River. Between
November and March New York eats a
good many hundred tons of Penohscot
smelts. Penobscot smclts will run about
125 pounds to the bushel, and every
time a smelt fisherman in that river
hauls up his net and don't find bushel
of smelts in it that haul was not as great
a success as he counted on. / can't be-
gin to tell you how many nets there are
m the river grabbing for smelts every
day, but there are enough, and although
each net is only lifted twice in twenty
four hours, once at flood and once at ebb
tide, by the time they have been hauled up
those two times daily for 100 days, which
won't be any too long a season, you may
figure it up easy enough that each net
will have relieved the river of not less
than 81, 900 pounds of smelts.
FIFTY nets may be set down as a low
estimate of the number that are set daily
every season in the PenobscOt River, and
their catch will not aggregate a pound
less than 600 tons of these sweet and ten
der little fish. And these nets I'm speak
ing of are simply the ones they call trap
nets, and they are set only in the river
where the tide runs. Above tide the
river freezes, and a small army of smelt
fishermen gather there and fish through
the ice with dip net fastened to a long
pole. 1t is hardly necessary to say that
those fishermen haven't been very busy
this season, but they get their work in
for good many bushels of smelts when
the river is frozen.
''As to those tom coos. With every
net of smelts that the fisherman hauls in
he finds enough tom Gods to supply him
with stock for little trade in the agri-
cultural line. The farm lands along the
Penobscot are not the poorest in the
world, but they will stand good deal of
tempering with fertilizers. The tom cod
is not the equal of the salmon in CASTRO
nomic qualities, but it can knock the
salmon endwise as a promoter of agricul-
tural interests. Spread literally over the
reluctant sod, Or its juices mingled gen.
ously, by means of sub-soil plough,
with the discouraged soil, the tom cod
will restore willingness to the meadow
grass, and urge tho corn to new endeavor.
The PenobscOt farmers found that out
years ago, so every winter they come in
force to the Penobscot's banks and dicker
with the smelt fishermen for their tom
Gods, and cart them away, frozen stiff as
clothespins, for the good of the land. And
these farmers discovered another thing
one winter. years age. That winter they
were running pretty close to the wind on
fodder for their sheep and cattle. In
fact, long before spring had thought of
coming, a good many of the farmers
hadn't enough hay or grain left over to
NOW floors or to make it worth while for
a rat to skirmish around the grandries
any longer. 1t was critical period in
the agricultural history of the valley. and
things looked black. One day farmer
was returning from the river with load
of frozen tom Gods. He passed on the
road COW on which gaunt hunger had set
its unmistakablc seal. As he passed, a
couple of tom Gods were jolted off his
sled. The COW saw them, made for
them, and ate them with a relish. That
gave the farmer an idea. and although
the cow chased him for three miles, and
he had to keep shoyeling out tom Gods to
her to prevent her jumping in the sled
after them, he did not let the idea escape
him. He had few bushels of tom Gods
left when he reached home. and he
divided them up among his sheep. his
cows. and his horses. The horses didn't
take kindly to them, and that was thought
to be funny. for a hungry horse will eat
up his manager and seem to relish it. But
the cows and the sheep ate the tom Gods
It'll gusto, and that night they were
QGiet for the first time in a week. The
news spread, and other farmers tried the
tom Gods as fodder. 1t was success.
The sheep and cattle not only relished
the frozen fish, but got sleek and fat on
them. When the smclt fishermen heard
how important an economic factor their
tom Gods had become in the Penobscot
Valley they promptly dc. bled the price
to the farmers, but the farmers stood the
raise and the valley was saved. - New