The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-12-02
LOBSTERS DOWN EAST.
The Reason Why They Never Become
 a Drug in the Market.

a Drug in the Market.
 (From the Portland Daily Press.)
 Something like $50 men make bu- siness of catching Holsters in Cumber land county alone, and the most of these are, of course, men who live on the shores of Casco bay. In Septem- Der, according to the figures furnished by Fish Warden Gribben, who keeps track of all lobster arrivals and ship ments here, 37S,194 Holsters were brought into Portland, and the figures this month will probably be larger than this. Of this number 95, ,533 were "boat lobsters,'' or caught in Casco bay.
 ''The lobster business is rapidly on the increase in Maine," says Mr Crib ben. More men are finding employ ment in the lobster fisheries in this state every year and more Holsters are being caught and shipped out of the state The Portland dealers are finding their business enlarged every year. They now supply the markets of St. Louis, Chicago, Minneapolis, and other towns still further west and their heaviest shipments, of course, are to New York city.
 l Many people wonder why it is that 1 when Holsters are abundant the prices 1 do not drop to g. corresponding figure. l This is because the dealers have big l pounds in which the Holsters are | placed when they are plenty, and held for March and other seasons of the 1 year when Holsters are scarce. There l are probably all the way from S00- ] 900 to 900,O00 Holsters in pounds now all along the coast of Maine. These pounded Holsters have to be we'll fed on fish, and the people who have charge of the pounds have to be very careful not to overfeed them, for if they do the Holsters will die with alarming rapidity
 ''The fishermen get on an average of 10 cents apiece for Holsters all the year round, and some of them make l a good thing out of the business. Of
 course, the fishermen do sot devote all
 their time to lobster catching. Some
 of them are now giving up lobstering
 for a time and are going smelting.
 This pays pretty well at this time of
 the year. The smelts are not so very
 plentiful, because they are mixed up
 with small herrings, which are worth
 very little. On an average, fifteen
 boxes of smelts day go through
 Portland, being shipped to Boston and
 New York markets from Passport,
 Yarmouth and Portland Smelts are
 eight cents a pound, and there are
 about fifty pounds to a box. So you
 see that as each man ships one or two
 boxes every day, he is making a good
 thing out of this work.
 'The consumption of Holsters is on
 the increase, and as this fish increases
 in numbers and becomes more plenti-
 ful, the demand constantly increases. There are now seven steamers owned and operated by Portland firms which make two or three trips here a week
 with Holsters, which they have gath
 cred up along the coast from the fish, ermen or pound keepers, besides any number of small schooners. We are not getting any Nova Scotia Holsters now. The law in Nova Scotia pro. : tects Holsters from July to January and in January it is so stormy that . the lobster smacks do not find it very
 prO1lCdDle tO dLLeIipL IliS 1ollS dHei Llel | voyage to Nova Scotia after these fish "No Holsters are being canned 1T , Maine now" continued MT Gribben "Once this was a big business here but the short-lobster law killed it 1T z this state. The canners do not finC : it profitable to buy Holsters at theil present rates, and they can't purchase short ones. Nearly all of the canning business is now done in Nova Scotia although I believe the catching O : short Holsters is restricted to certain g na1-t of tha coast there.''