Big Lobster Pound

There is a lobster farm - or pouml. as it is called - twelve acres in extent at ; Southport, J!e. The Uoston Globe describes this pound, the most successful on the coast, whence one million lobsters are shipped each year. The pound is formed by building a solid dam across a tidewater cove. This dam does not quite riseto high water mark, I but across the top is placed a fence of , iron rods, a daily change of water, and preventing the lobsters from eseaping. In the spring and fall business is most brisk. When the fishermen bring the lobsters to the pound the "fish," as they are called, are hóisted to the dam, measured, and those which are more than ten and one-half inches long, the legal limit, are thrown in. If a lobster is clever his life in the pound may be long and full of joy. If he is stupid he will be flshed outwith a drag seineandpacked in a barrel, with a piece of ice for a pillow, and sent to Boston. The seine is made of stout tu-ine and is weighted at the bottom with a heavy ehain. Along the top is a row of corks, which Bustain the weight of the seine while the chain drags on the bottom of the pound. A single cast of this seine will bring1 up lobsters enough to fill eleven barrels. The chain as it swoeps along the bottom stirs up the lobsters, which immediately shoot backward into the Black twine. In taking them out the men wear heavy mittens, though even then they are often nipped. In the pound the lobsters are fed on salt herring, men rowing about in skifCs and pitching the herring overboard. This is ealled "feeding the chickens," and it takes about six barrels to make a light luncheon for the flock. There are said to be a nurnberof old hard Bhellfi in the Southport farm which for yeara have evaded the casts of the draf?. Two of enormous size have become quite tameand crawl about in the shallow water. The age of the lobster is a debated question. The small marketable specimens are generally snpposed to be from four to six old, but some lobsters are believed to live to the green old age of twenty-five years.