ADDRESSES AT AGRICULTURAL HALL.

HON. S. T. READ, PRESIDING.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PIONEERS OF MICHIGAN: It is eminently fitting that we, the people of one of the greatest States of the Union, should come up to our beautiful capital, from every town and hamlet within its borders, to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of its birth. It is fitting to pause and look back through all those years to the beginning of all this goodly heritage; and from the progress of the past gather lessons of value to guide us in the development of that higher civilization for which we strive. But it is particularly appropriate for us, old pioneers who came to Michigan years before it was admitted as a State, when it was still a trackless wilderness, with only here and there a tradingpost; and who cleared the way and laid the foundations for this great commonwealth, to gather here to-day, to note and rejoice over all that the brain and muscle of Michigan's sons and daughters have wrought for their beloved State. No other American State has made a more gratifying progress than that of Michigan. With a population of but 31,000 in 1830, it now has about 2,000,000, and its increase in wealth has been commensurate with its growth in numbers. The commercial position of our State, with its 1,400 miles of lake navigation along its shores, and a water communication with the Atlantic ocean, together with its central position on the American continent, giving it access to a vast internal trade, is one possessing remarkable advantages, which our people have not been slow in improving. In the variety, richness and abundance of her natural resources, Michigan stands the peer of any State in the Union, if not actually superior to all of them. Her manufacturing industries are rapidly increasing. Our public school system is the pride of the State; while the little educational sprout that was planted at Ann Arbor forty years ago, and which we have nurtured with so much care, has grown and flourished, until its hospitable branches shelter not only youths from every part of our land, but from foreign lands as well. Our pub

lic buildings, churches, charities, reformatories and penal institutions are a credit to the State; and, beyond all, we are free from debt (practically). The future of our State is bright with promise. Possessing, as it does, almost inexhaustible natural resources, it should be the home of a contented and prosperous people for ages to come.

FISH AND FISH CULTURE IN MICHIGAN.

JOHN H. BISSELL,

The abundant natural supply of fish in the waters of this State has played so important a part in its settlement and development that any history of the State, or its people, which omitted mention of its fish or fisheries, would be incomplete. In the present and near future the operations of the State's establishments for fish culture, are, and will be, useful and important factors in the further development of the State, and assist in solving one at least of the urgent economic problems which must be met by every community as its population increases,-that of cheap and wholesome food supply.

We know something of the great quantities of fish that were found in our waters by the early settlers, and those who came to trade with the Indians before any permanent settlements existed outside of the fur trading posts, from the accounts that have been happily preserved for us in that charming field of history, the discovery, explorations and settlement of "New France." The great abundance of fish during those times is also evident from the fact of their easy capture, in comparatively large quantities, by the rudest of fishing appliances. The Indians of this region lived very largely upon fish; and so, too, did the fur traders. Their highways were the lakes and rivers which served as well as supplied larders, always at hand. Jacques Cartier says, in 1535, the Indians on the St. Lawrence River "had in their houses vessels as big as any butt or tun in which they preserved their fish." From which it is evident the fish were captured not only for the summer use, but to carry them through the winter. Other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have told us of the periodical migration of Indian tribes, living in Upper Canada, to convenient places on the lakes and rivers, to lay in stores of fish for

their winter use. La Hontan, a French officer who visited the lakes in the year 1688, mentions a tribe of Indians "who procured their subsistence mainly from the fish which abounded at the foot of the rapids" of the Ste. Marie's River. Pere Marquette (1671), La Salle (1679) and Charlevoix (1721) made frequent allusions in their narratives, to the bountiful supply of fish and its recognized importance to themselves and to the natives.

The earliest notice I have found of the fish in Lake Erie is by Baron La Hontan in 1688. La Hontan says: "It abounds with sturgeon and white fish, but trouts are very scarce in it as well the other fish that we take in the lakes of Huron and Illinese" (Michigan). Down to the time of the organization of Michigan as a State, all sources of information now attainable agree in the statement that the fish were so plentiful the supply was deemed inexhaustible. That was before the days of rapid and improved methods of transportation, the absence of which necessarily restricted the market. That was, also, before the introduction of modern fishing appliances. Then the catching of fish was for home consumption entirely, and of course with a thin and scattered population the demand was a limited one, easily supplied from time to time. The apparatus then used in fishing was limited in quantity, rude in construction, and as compared with modern fishing rigs as the boy's sail-boat to an iron steamship. From the earliest settlements to about 1830, industrial fishing was almost exclusively confined to the Indians and the employees of the Hudson's Bay, American and Northwest Fur Companies; the former organized in 1696, the latter in 1783. These companies were established for prosecuting fur trade with the Indians, the first great incentive to exploration and settlement of the upper lakes; but, as that industry became less profitable, they turned their attention to catching and trafficking in fish. Blois' Gazetteer of Michigan, published in 1835, says of the fish product of the great lakes: "Their quantities are surprising and apparently so inexhaustible as to warrant the belief that were a population of millions to inhabit the lake shores, they would furnish ample supplies of this article of food without sensible diminution." We may smile at such a belief now with the experience of what fifty years of fishing have done, but the statement probably embodied the general opinion of the community of that day upon this subject.

Mr. Lanman in his history of Michigan published in 1839 says,

that then the lakes abounded with fish of various kinds, mentioning sturgeon, Mackinac trout, " muskallonge" and whitefish, the latter only being important as an article of commerce. At that time industrial fishing was mainly confined as to locality, to the Detroit, St. Clair and Ste Marie rivers, the Straits of Mackinac, the extreme southeastern end of Lake Superior and Saginaw Bay. "Whitefish," he says, "were caught in large quantities around Mackinac, Sault Ste. Marie and the other waters connecting the great lakes. They are packed in barrels and transported to New York and Ohio."

The Detroit river formerly maintained extensive and profitable white fisheries. The fish were not only abundant but of a superior quality. These fish, although sometimes called the Detroit River whitefish, are really Lake Erie fish. They pass the greater part of their lives in Lake Erie, feeding and living there, and only moving up the river late in October, through November, and part of December, for the purpose of spawning along the channel banks of the river. It must not be understood that all the whitefish in Lake Erie make Detroit river their breeding grounds, for vast numbers of them found suitable spawning places on the reefs, ledges and shoals about the islands at the western end of the lake. As the whitefish possesses in common with all the members of the salmon family to which it belongs, the instinct to return and deposit its ova in the place of its own nativity, it may not be inappropriate to designate such of the Lake Erie fish as seek the river for the purpose of reproduction, as the Detroit River whitefish, although no structural difference distinguishes them from the other whitefish of the Lake.

As late as 1836 and 1837, such statistics as we have, indicate that the Detroit river yielded nearly one-half of the total number of pounds of fish caught in the Great Lakes for those years. In 1859 the value of the catch in the river was put at $75,000, all whitefish. In 1867 Mr. George Clark, a man of great experience and an accurate observer, estimates the yield of the river at 500,000, averaging in weight three pounds. The Board of Trade Review put the number of whitefish received at Detroit in 1863 at over 900,000. This would of course include nearly all of the fish caught in Lake St. Clair besides those taken in Detroit river.

Mr. Lanman's "Red Book" of 1871, notices that the whitefish are becoming scarce in all the rivers. The account says that "for

merly as many as 8,000 fish have been taken at a single haul of a seine. At present (1871) 2,000 is considered a big haul." To note and emphasize the difference, which has come about in these fisheries in the past fourteen years, let me call your attention to the fact, that one of the best fisheries of the river, in 1885, produced less than 2,000 whitefish for the entire season's fishing.

The River St. Clair has always produced great quantities of fish, the pike-perch or wall-eyed pike being the most abundant. In 1830, and for a number of years thereafter, immigration to the shores of the Detroit and St. Clair rivers increased very rapidly. The settlers found it difficult to obtain a supply of other food, and from necessity were largely dependent upon the product of the fisheries. The Rev. O. C. Thompson, in a paper read before the Detroit Pioneer Society in 1828, says, "More and better fish were taken from the St. Clair river than at any other fisheries, and the fish were larger than those of the Detroit river," and they were sold at $1.50 per hundred fish. The St. Clair fisheries have passed into history, (as have most of those on the Detroit river), excepting perhaps two or three points where the pike-perch or pickerel, as they are locally named, are caught by seining, in limited numbers. The present season, which closed last week, has proved the poorest ever known. From the earliest times of which we have any record, the Lake and River St. Clair have been noted for the abundance and good quality of their fish, and even now the St. Clair flats are famous for black bass fishing.

The first industrial fishing on Lake Huron was commenced in 1835, with small sail boats and gill nets. The principal product was whitefish and salmon trout, which were salted and sold in Detroit.

66

The great fur trade which centered at Mackinac, early brought into prominence the fishing grounds of that locality. From its great abundance there the lake or salmon trout was named the Mackinac Trout." Father Marquette mentions besides the white fish, "sturgeon, herring and three varieties of lake trout," as abounding in the waters of the straits, and fifty years later Charlevoix was surprised by the number, and charmed by the qualities of the whitefish of those waters. The experience of one fisherman will illustrate most strikingly the change which the use of modern fishing apparatus has wrought in these waters.

Mr. Noel La Ville informs us, that he began fishing at Macki