especially, of the Gulf of Maine are particularly well conditioned fish
and are noted for their excellence.

The figures presented in Table 2 show only a fraction of the catch from
the Inner Grounds, since they deal entirely with the fares of fishing
vessels of 5 net tons and over. There are literally thousands of the
so-called "licensed" or "under-tonned" boats, mainly gill-netters, that
take millions of pounds from these waters annually, principally cod and
haddock.

On the Maine coast and across the line in New Brunswick there are more
than 300 weirs which furnished to American smokers and canners during
the year 1923 (whose figures have been chosen as representing an average
season) 77,000,000 pounds of herring. On the coast of Massachusetts
there are 50 or more weirs and fish traps, and from the Isle of Shoals
to Pemaquid Point in Maine there are more than 50 floating traps in the
various bays, on the points of offshore islands, or even in the open
sea, and all these take a rich harvest from these waters. Then, too,
there is the lobster fishery, more important in the Gulf of Maine than
anywhere else in the United States.

Of these various branches of the fisheries industries few statistics are
available, yet we may say that the figures of the 1919 census showed
that the "under-ton" boats mentioned landed 5,324,426 pounds of fish at
the port of Boston, mostly of cod and haddock, and that the same type of
craft in 1923 landed at Portland, Me., more than 3,000,000 pounds,
principally of ground fish. We also know that every island, hamlet,
village, town, and city along this nearly 4,000 'miles of coast line
takes its toll from the sea.