United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries Part III—Report of the Commission for 1873–74 and 1874–75

Abstract

THIS volume is quite as interesting as any of those which have preceded it, whilst the amount of reliable information it brings to a focus, not only regarding the fish and fisheries of the United States, but of the fisheries of Great Britain, Sweden, Prussia, Holland, France, and Russia, is remarkable; nor are the historical observations on the condition of the fisheries among the ancient Greeks and Romans, and on their modes of salting and pickling fish less interesting. The volume is throughout so rich in statistics and details of piscicultural labour that we feel embarrassed as to what part of it to notice first; to give a detailed account of the contents is simply impossible in anything like the space we can afford. As readers of NATURE may be aware, the present volume is one of a series having for its object an exposition of the present state of the American fisheries, and in particulur showing the extent to which the seas and waters of the United States have been over-fished, and how far the systems of artificial fish culture at present in vogue provide a remedy for the reckless spoliation of the waters which has been going on for the last twenty years. Familiar as we are with the figures of fish-culture, so far as they are locally applicable to British enterprise, and whether in respect of oysters or salmon, any details we can give are utterly dwarfed by the fabulous-looking figures applicable to what has been achieved in America. The young salmon which have been thrown into the River Tay from the Stormontfield hatching-ponds since the beginning of the experiments in 1853 up to the present time, will not be equal to the operations of one season on the Upper Sacramento; in 1875 the salmon eggs collected numbered 11,000,000, making a bulk of eighty bushels, and weighing nearly ten tons! These eggs, so carefully packed that only a small percentage was wasted, have been largely distributed over America, and will doubtless ultimately add largely to the fish supply of the United States.

United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries. Part III.—Report of the Commission for 1873–74 and 1874–75.

(Washington Government Printing-office, 1876.)