Forest and Stream, June 8, 1876

Untitled

Sea -- Finfish - Legislation

-- At a meeting of the North Carolina Press Association at New Berne, in May, a reply to the toast "Our Fishing Interests," Hon. J. E. West said: --

"The fish of North Carolina are worth more to the people of the State in nett money than the cotton crop. Tens of thousands of our people depend upon the supply of oysters and their fish (as our Revised Code has it) for their food supply. The banks of the Pamlico, Albermarle, Bogue, Currituck, and Core Sounds of the Neuse, Cape Fear, Roanoke, Chowan and Tar Rivers are thronged with this class of people. My friends Lane, Watson, and Daniels, with possibly one or two others, pay to fishermen here in New Berne alone some $75,000 a year for fresh fish just for shipment, to say nothing of the immense sums of money paid directly to them by retail dealers, or by the consumers amounting to not less than $150,000 a year. Then again vast quantities of shad, rock, herring, etc., are packed, salted, and shipped by the fishermen themselves, who have invested here some $25,000 in boats, seines, etc., and employ about 200 hands, representing the same number of families. The Southern Express Company has carried over our railroad within a few months nearly nine thousand tubs of fresh fish, to say nothing of the tens of thousands of gallons of oysters and scallops, thousands upon thousands of clams, turtle, and shrimp shipped by steamer and sailing vessels, or by rail as freight. Yes, sir, we sow not and still we reap this bountiful harvest, this great gift of a beneficent Providence.

The Delaware and Chesapeake Bays are being steadily depleted of their supplies of oysters, new planting grounds are eagerly sought, the creeks and thoroughfares of North Carolina offer superior inducements to dealers in the bivalves, and the six hundred oyster boats that I have seen at one time oystering in the Delaware will soon whiten our own waters. This industry with us is just in its infancy. The few thousand bushels planted by my friend Ives, of Beauford, will soon swell into millions, and every acre of oyster ground be worth not less than one thousand dollars. Talk of your Nevada and Arizona gold mines, a mine that will return, if properly worked, untold gold.

It is our duty to protect this great gift by proper protective legislation, by enacting stringent laws requiring all nets and seines to be removed from the navigable waters of our State, say Friday night at sunset, and not set again until Monday morning at sunrise, during the season our food fishes are ascending the rivers and creeks for the purpose of depositing their spawn, providing means to restock our rivers, now nearly depleted of fish, by artificial means, etc., etc."