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reduce the output of dairy products. Still, the conditions of Prince Edward Island are well adapted for dairying; plenty of pure water, good paturage and the coolness of

PAST AND PRESENT OF

our summer nights are very favourable nat- ural advantages that should make the “Gar- den of the Gulf" the “Denmark of American dairying."

FISHERIES.

BY D. A. MACKINNON.

After the discovery of Prince Edward Island fishing was resorted to for the main- tenance of its earliest settlers. The number of residents engaged in this occupation was very small. In I 728 there were twenty-three fishermen in L’Isle St. Jean, fourteen of whom were at Havre St. Pierre, four at Havre aux Sauvages, three at Point de l’est, one at Port La Joie and one at Riviere du Nord-Est. Sixty-five years earlier Sieur Doublet, with two adventurers, established a few fishing stations on its shores and con- tinued fishing operations until about 1700. Count St. Bierre in 1720 organized a com- mercial company and interested the concern in this industry chiefly at St. Peters.

Disturbing questions arose between the British and French governments relating to the fisheries in the maritime provinces and much ill feeling was aroused, which power should hold the Island and the fisheries adj a- cent depended upon the issue of war. When peace was concluded between the two na- tions these matters were settled. By the treaty of Paris (February 10, 1763) Great Britain acquired Prince Edward Island and the fisheries along its shores.

From that time until the Revolution the citizens of the United States, being then un- der the government of Great Britain, en- joyed the right to take fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence equally with the other inhab- itants of the empire. In 1775 the British

Parliament passed an act to deprive Ameri- cans forever of these rights and it was one of the provocations to rebellion.

By the treaty of 1783, in which the inde- pendence of the United States was recog- nized, the American fishermen were permit- ted to fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at all other places in the sea where the in- habitants of both countries used to fish but not to dry or cure fish in settled bays. The Gulf of St. Lawrence appears to have had a plentiful supply of fish and seemed designed to supply this species of food to the Amer- ican and European continents. Nine hun- dred and thirty-eight American vessels in 1807 and 1808 were engaged in these fish- eries. Some six hundred American schoon- ers were engaged in fishing on the north side of the Island.

\r\'ar having again been declared it was claimed that certain of the privileges permit- ted under the treaty were consequently for- feited. Britain resolved to exclude fisher— men from our inshore fisheries. Contention followed. British citizens captured several American fishermen for infringement of the law by fishing within the three-mile limit.

In 1818 a new treaty was agreed upon by which the United States renounced any lib— erty enjoyed or claimed by the inhabitants to take. dry or cure fish within three miles of any of the coasts, bays, creeks or harbors of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in Amer-