The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1904-03-31
specia1 to The journal.

Special to The journal. .--. ---..--..s.--- .
New York, March 2S.-The lobster
Is passing. Unless radical methods
are employed to arrest his extermina-
ton it will possibly not be many gene
rations before he will have ceased to
exist. So says Professor G.. H. W.
iSmythe, who has just finished year
of Investigation Of the decrease of our
sters, mackerel, Goldfish and salmon.
"For twenty years Holsters have
steadily decreased in size and the
catches have grown smaller and
smaller. Nearly all the lobster can
ming factories that few years ago
land to Eastport have closed, and the
supply in the market is small and
80 uncertain that the price lists of the
big wholesale grocers contain no quo
tations on canned lebster," says Pro-.
fessOr Smythe.
ing over four or five pounds were
numerous and could be bought for IL
or Is cents a pound. To-day the
price Is twice as much, and two or
three-pound lobster Is considered a
big one by comparison.
TN the Peabody museum at Salem,
Mass, there is the mounted shell Of
q lobster that was caught near by
which weighed thirty-two pounds.
One was caught at Swampscott, Mass,
weighing twenty-seven pounds. If
the reader was to purchase dozen
Holsters at Fulton Market to-day they
would probably not average more
than pound and half each.
1.-THE average lobster weighs ten or
twelve pounds at maturity, and one
3 weighing around four pounds would
be of about a common sense market
able size. To catch and sell one a
quarter this size suggests the market
Ing Of chickens g. month out OF the
shell. "
1.-The determination Of the lobster
One is the short-sighted avarice Of the
fishermen, who seem unable to look
into the future, and the other is the
lack Of properly framed and properly
enforced laws. The United States fish
commission is doing and has done
much valuable work, but 1t all seems
to be done solely on scientific lines,
and neither the commission nor the
legislature has accomplished anything
of practical nature looking toward
the protection Of the lobster fishery
has transplanted much spawn to
various waters and the work has been
we'll done; but it is without permanent
good results when the fishermen are
unrestrained by law or common sense
missions labor by their ruthless
slaughter. The florists do much for
Central park and other parks, but
their efforts would be far from salts
factory if the public were permitted
to pick flowers, trample the grass and
destroy the shrubbery almost as soon
as 1t made its appearance.
'Lobsters are found in or near deer
water in the greatest numbers. They
are, or were, fairly numerous in New
Jersey and New York waters, but the
majority are caught along the Maine
and Nova Scotia coasts, where shoa
water is accessible during the shed
der" time in summer, and when win.
ter comes a rocky bottom in deer
q water is close at hand. This distric
supplies three quarters Of the lobster!
that are consumed in the United
d States. The men who catch lobster.
are the coast fishermen, men who lool
to the sea for their livelihood and who
seek Holsters, cod, haddock, sword
fish and other denizens Of the deep a!
the within seizes them. None of then
devotes all his time to Holsters. There
is close season IN summer and the
winter Is the real lobster season. II
the fall Jim or George decides whethel
4 to so to the Banks coddin' or sta.
at home and go lobsterin'.' If HI
decides on the clustering he get
tackle in readiness to begin late ii
/ October. Usually he has a tpardner,
and the firm will have about. Isl
lobster pots, which are made of lath
nailed to frame Of withes bent il
such manner that the top and side
are rounding, while the bottom is flat
There are openings in each end, thru
~ which the lobster crawls In quest o