Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/845

Rh the markets. The general introduction of speedier and of increased transportation facilities, of refrigerator cars, and of cold storage warehouses soon greatly extended, not only the area but also the period, of consumption. Thus it happened that a wider and more enduring market speedily abated the surplus that the fishermen bewailed—a surplus which, under an ever-increasing demand, ere long dwindled to a deficiency. The existence in a densely populated territory of a remunerative fishery, free and open to all comers, conjoined with the adoption of improved devices of wholesale capture, created a lamentable dearth that the utmost effort availed little to relieve.

The river at its mouth discharges its current to the westward, so that along the Connecticut shore of the sound a strip of fresh water extends a dozen miles before mingling with the salt sea. This belt is practically a portion of the river, and the fish, approaching, probably, from the eastern entrance of the sound, enter the strip at its terminus; then, retracing their course, pursue their way through the fresh water to the actual mouth of the river, within which the law prohibits the construction of pound nets. These formidable engines of finny destruction were ranged at short intervals, across the route of the fish, in the fresh-water belt, some of them extending over a mile into the sound. In constant operation, ingulfing fish every hour of the day and night without intermission or cessation, the natural result was the capture, in the sound waters, of the larger portion of the run of shad. When the sorely harried fish finally entered the river, they were beset with scores of gill nets, such as we are familiar with in the Hudson, and which were stretched at short distances as far as Essex, beyond which the poor remnant encountered the sweep nets, which one after another were dragged across the river as fast as possible. In a few years the annual catch declined from nearly half a million to a mere fraction, and at present will average but little more than thirty thousand, the commissioners of late having found it useless to stock with liberality. 'The State of Massachusetts procured the erection at Holyoke dam of a thoroughly serviceable fishway, thereby opening the upper river to the shad, and, besides, freely colonized with fry the portion that she controlled. The effort was vain, the expenditure useless, and the complaints of her Fish Commission to that of Connecticut that the shad are debarred from her waters have failed to effect material redress. The offending fishermen, however, contend that the lack of shad is due to river pollution, to the diversion of the current by the construction of the Government breakwater at its mouth, and to other causes not subject to their influence or control.

The early settlers in Massachusetts found immense numbers of shad in the various rivers of the colony, and, following the Indian