ranch” A.

pantry. The noise never seemed to bother them. They were indeed blessed with an abundance of patience. It seemed they

had a way of tuning us out back in those days. The use of cotton twine for knitting the trap heads changed

during World War Two, in a most unusual way. Lester Miller, a close friend of the family, while serving in the United States Navy, brought a sample of nylon twine for father to knit a trap head out of and test it for wear. Miller while on a mission to Halifax, Nova Scotia, thought it a good idea at the time to have the twine

tested for the fishermen. Father put the nylon to a three-year test, not only in the salt

water, but also on land, where he laced it into a trap hoop and buried it. Seeing the excellent results on both testings, he was able to have the nylon experiment introduced to the government

of Prince Edward Island. His cousin W. A. Agnew was at that time the Trades Minister

to Newfoundland. He believed father's experiment to be a good one and was able to convince the government to allow funding for further testing to be done. Austin ”Aust" Murphy of Alberton and a friend of Father’s fishing out of Tignish was the second fisherman to join in using the nylon heads in his lobster traps.

This once again proved excellent results. The experiment was later followed up with funding to the

Fishermen’s Union at Tignish to have the nylon imported from Halifax, NS. Soon it became known among the fishermen as a quality twine that could not be equaled. The salt water had no effect on the nylon and today it mostly outlasts the life of the

trap. It can be removed and laced into other traps, saving fishermen hundreds of dollars.

73