Fishery
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Fishery. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the business or occupation of catching fish. The word fishery is popularly used in a comprehensive sense; not merely is there a herring fishery, a salmon fishery, a cod fishery, a pilchard fishery, etc., for catching these genuine fishes, there is a whale fishery for harpooning the mammals called whales, a crab and lobster fishery for catching those crustaceans, an oyster fishery for obtaining thos those testaceaus mollusks, as well as a seal fishery for capturing those animals. The great locality for the whale fishery is the polar regions of the N. and S. hemispheres, that for the cod fisheries the banks of Newfoundland, that for the herring fishery the entire E. coast of this country and the coasts of Great Britain and Ireland, that for the salmon fishery the rivers of North America and Great Britain. The practice of salting fish was known to the Egyptians about 1351 b. c., or even earlier. Herrings were largely caught in Scotland, as early as the 9th century. The injudicious interference of the government drove some of the fishermen to Holland. The fisheries of the United States are superintended by the federal Bureau of Fisheries which is a division of the Department of Commerce. There are also similar bureaus in many States, and extensive hatcheries for propagation of various species with which to stock our waters have been established. In 1919 the number of vessels employed in the fishery industry of the United States was estimated at 8,280 of 228,000 tons; the number of persons employed at 188,000; the capital invested at $142,140,000; and value of products at $110,992,000, about one-fifth of the total value of fishery products throughout the world.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
the taking and curing of any sort of water animal for the market. In the widest sense of the term the fisheries of the world include whaling, sealing, catching sea otter, the taking of turtles, alligators, fishing for oysters, clams, crabs, shrimps, lobsters, the gathering of sponges, corals, and pearls, as well as catching the various food fishes. The fisheries of the world produce about $300,000,000 worth annually. In order of importance the leading fisheries are those of the oyster, herring, salmon, and cod. Named in the order of the importance of their fisheries, the leading countries are the United States , Great Britain , Japan, Russia, France, Canada, Norway, and Newfoundland. In the United States there are about 232,000 people engaged in various fisheries. The total annual catch is worth about $60,000,000. For further information the reader is referred to the articles on the various fishes, the shellfish, and other water-animals of pursuit. Fishermen are wont to claim that the sea, including lakes and rivers, yields more food than the land; this statement was at one time true. The value of the important fisheries is as follows, no figures being available for India and China: Belgium $1,000,000 Canada 46,000,000 Denmark 3,000,000 Italy 3,000,000 Japan 13,000,000 Norway 8,000,000 Portugal 4,000,000 Spain 8,000,000 Great Britain 46,000,000 United States 60,000,000 See Cod ; Herring ; Mackerel ; Salmon ; Sardines ; Oyster ; Clam Drive net. Fishing nets Fishing nets
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts treat whales, seals and sea otters as branches of "fishery"; that framing has gone, the International Whaling Commission having banned commercial whaling from 1986. The banks of Newfoundland, which Collier's in 1921 named as the great cod ground, were closed by a Canadian moratorium in 1992 after the stock collapsed, and have never fully recovered. Coastal fisheries are now bounded by 200-mile exclusive economic zones, established for the United States by the Magnuson Act of 1976 and internationally by the Law of the Sea convention of 1982, while the Bureau of Fisheries Collier's mentions has passed through several successors into today's National Marine Fisheries Service. The largest shift is one neither entry anticipated: farmed fish now supply about half the seafood people eat, and the United Nations reckons roughly a third of wild stocks are fished beyond sustainable limits.
Written for this edition, 2026.