The demand upon it grows with increase of population and improved facilities for shipping shad to a distance. It is not alone among the people living along the river that the shad find a market, but hundreds of miles of railways act as distributing agents and take shad where formerly thev w^ere unknown. Since 1S82. the United States Fish Commission has made large contributions of shad fry and eggs to the Hudson, and these contributions have been important factors in keeping the supply up to the present figures.

The "contributions" of shad fry for restocking the

438 The Hudson River

river, from all sources, have in fifteen years aggregated probably not less than a hundred million. Years ago the shad used to run up the river to Baker's Falls, nearly fifty miles above Troy, and the farmers came from distant points to camp at the Falls and catch the fish to salt down. But the building of the Troy dam put a stop to that industry. The statistics for a recent year, published by the State Fish Commissioners, show that in three thousand five hundred nets over a million shad were caught. During the two months or less that the shad season lasts the fishing stations are scenes of picturesque activity, retaining, perhaps, more suggestion of the old distinctive ri\'er life than anything else that we can witness to-day. The toiling groups of roughly clad rivermen, handling and shipping the fish, the midget fieets of clustering boats, and the endless labour of spreading, drying, and repairing the nets, are details of a quaint and fascinating picture. The greatest number of nets operated are at Alpine and Fort Lee on the Jersey shore, and at Nyack and Ossining in New York. The striped bass, while caught for market, is more of a fish for sportsmen, for he takes only live bait and makes a fight that will cause an angler's blood to leap.