THE MULLET FISHERY. 577 



Table showing the extent and value of the mullet fisheries of the United States for Hie year 1879. 



* These fish, only occasionally for mullet, and hence cannot be regarded as professional mullet fishermen. 



9. MAEKETS. 



t Estimated. 



A good deal has been said from time to time about the food qualities of the mullet. lu all of 

 the principal seaport towns between North Carolina and Louisiana it is an important article of 

 food, and in many places a third, or even a larger percentage, of all the fresh fish consumed are of 

 this species. When perfectly fresh, mullet are considered of excellent flavor and find a ready sale, 

 but owing to their fatness they soon deteriorate in warm weather, and when stale have a rank 

 flavor which is not at all pleasant. In cool weather, however, or in seasons when they are not 

 particularly oily, they keep equally well with the other grades of fish. Many contend that salt 

 mullet are of an inferior quality, and will never come into general favor. These insist that the fish 

 are soft and of a rank and muddy flavor. Others, on the contrary, hold that they compare very 

 favorably with the mackerel and with other pickled fish so frequently met with in the principal 

 markets. Professor Goode, in referring to the subject, says: "I had an opportunity of tasting 

 some salted by a negro at Mill Cove, and can bear testimony to their excellence. Their flavor is 

 more like that of a salted salmon than of a mackerel, and they are hard, toothsome, and not at all 

 muddy in taste." An examination of the evidence on both sides leads to the belief that where 

 inferior grades of mullet are found the difficulty is to be attributed to the defective methods of 

 SEC. v 37 



