Showing an aggregate of 21,000 barrels, of which about 18,000 barrels are salted; valuation $169,800; value of fixtures $43,600; estimated amount paid for wages, $22,000.
The fishing grounds of Michigan City are almost entirely within our State. The number of barrels include those sold fresh as well as salted, there being a considerable quantity of the former, in some of the fisheries last named, Michigan City and New Buffalo especially, from whence they are sent packed in ice to the different towns in Michigan; also to Lafayette and Indianapolis, Indiana, to Louisville, Kentucky, to Cincinnati, and also to Chicago, where they are repacked in ice, and some of them find their way to St. Louis, Cairo, etc. From St. Joseph and Grand Haven there are large quantities sent fresh to Chicago and Milwaukee, where they are repacked in ice.
At a fair estimate for the few small fisheries on this coast from which we have no return, together with those on the west coast of Lake Michigan, they are worth at least $60,000, but we have no data by which to form an estimate of the proportion packed.
The number of men employed, and the consequent expense, varies according to the method employed. With seines the occupation is very laborious, and requires a much stronger force than pound nets. One set of hands can manage a number of the latter. Some of the fisheries on Detroit and St. Clair rivers use seines altogether, to draw which, horse-power is brought into requisition in some cases. A double set of men are employed, working alternately day and night, and the exposure is a most disagreeable feature of the business, particularly in bad weather. The great bulk of the aggregate catch continues to be taken with seines or gill nets, but pound (or trap) nets are on the increase. They have been in use below Lake Huron more or less for the past four or five years, but it is only about two years since their introduction in the upper lakes. With these nets 100 barrels of white-fish have been taken at a single haul. Of course their general use must produce a material diminution in the supply.
As regards capital invested, there is in particular instances a wide difference. George Clark, Esq., nine miles below Detroit, has $12,000 invested in his grounds, owing mostly to the cost of removing obstructions. But this is an exception.
The barrels for packing constitute no inconsiderable item of this vast and important trade. Their manufacture is a regular branch in Port Huron, but most of them are made by the fishermen when not engaged in their regular vocation. They are made at all the villages and fishing stations on Lake Huron, pine being generally easy of access. The barrels are worth 62-½ cents each; half-barrels, 50 cents. Over two-thirds of the packages used are halves, but our estimated totals of the catch represent wholes.
Formerly the nets used also to be made almost entirely by the fishermen, who usually procured the twine from Detroit. Latterly, many of them have been brought from Boston already made.
Salt is another large item. For packing and repacking, about one-fourth of a barrel is used to each barrel of fish. For the amount packed, therefore, in the fisheries we have described, about 20,000 barrels are used.
| Total proceeds of Michigan fisheries | $620,000 |
| Total proceeds of all enumerated | 900,000 |
| Total capital invested | 252,000 |
| Paid for wages | 171,000 |
| Aggregate of barrels salted, say 80,000 bbls. | |
| Cost of packages | 70,000 |
| Cost of salt | 22,000 |
The catch at the Sauble and Thunder Bay showed a falling off last season, owing not to the want of fish, but to the unfavorable weather. At these points they congregate only from October to the close, and the weather being very rough last fall, the catch was comparatively light.