College Papers - 'Shad Fishing on the Connecticut. Why has it declined?'

 

  English 22.

Joseph A, Cone.

Theme #7, Jan. 8, 1895.

  First Year Special.

 

Your subject is an interesting one and your method of treatment is admirably concrete and specific. Your temper has too much that is argumenta-tive in it to be thoroughly appropriate to exposition. You use rather too many words for the sake of preciseness; your use of cause is at times rather a straining of the word. Rewrite

                  H.V.A.

Shad Fishing on the Connecticut.

Why has it declined?

 

Shad fishing, once so profitable and carried on extensively on the Connecticut River, has now become a thing of small consequence. Where hundreds of fisherman lined the banks with their “hauling” sieves by day forty years ago, and where hundreds of others floated down the river with their “dragging” sieves by night, one might go now for miles along the river in fishing season and not see a solitary fisherman. Thousands of shad used to be packed in ice each day upon the numerous wharves, and shipped to the New York markets by steamer the same night. Now all is changed, and for two very distinct and wholly unnecessary Not correctly used. You attempt to say too much  with  one word reasons, which I will endeavor to explain.

One of the causes of the decline of this large pursuit is the establishment of numerous industries along the banks of the river, such as chemical works, brass shops and dye houses. The poisonous refuse from these industries is turned into the river, either killing the shad outright or else driving them back to the Long Island Sound whence they came.

 Thus it becomes plain that  uUnder such conditions shad, a kind of fish seeking pure water for the purpose of laying their eggs, will not ascend a stream so contaminated. Thus progress and development in one set of industries in this, as in many other cases, becomes the means of pushinges some other industry to the wall.

But if progress and development is the first cause, it certainly is not the second and greater one. Greed and an unjust law are here responsible,; By the greed I refer to the actions of the “pound” fishermen, and by  the  an unjust law I refer to the law that allows “pounds” to be used at all. A “pound” is a large trap-net which contains several long arms that run far out into the sea. Develop this descrption These nets are placed thickly along the Connecticut coast on either side of the mouth of the river in question, and so effectual are they in entrapping fish that few shad get by them on their way to the river’s headwaters, for which they have headed for the purpose of spawning. Too loose

I  p.(?)But _^ after all, this second cause seems, to the outsider, to be raise a question only between the rights of the river fishermen and the coast fishermen. The former however, are beginning to look sharply about for something with which to reopen their paralized Sp. industry, A mixed metaphor here and the question had already become a political factor in Connecticut politics. The first cause of the decline, that of the manufacturing evils, could certainly be remedied by finding other means of disposing of the poisonous refuse, and the second cause could be greatly lessened by the passing of more stringent laws upon the “pound” fishermen. of which Ambiguous, no doubt, there is some need. The matter is being seriously taken up. One enterprising citizen along the river, who is also a fish commissioner, has taken steps to establish shad hatcheries a good distance up the stream where the young fish will be turned loose, and if it be true that they will X eventually finally return to their birthplace, we may perhaps again hear the rollicing song of the Connecticut River shad I fisherman as it floats across the water on a still night.