264 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



explicable decadence. This change did not come grad- 

 ually through a number of years, but, instead, the fishery 

 dropped in a year to only one-fourth its former volume 

 and never has risen since to any respectable semblance of 

 its former prosperous condition. The years since 1886 

 have found the annual catch only 43,000 barrels, an 

 amount in striking contrast with the average of 215,000 

 barrels of the nineteen years that preceded the present 

 period, or the 225,000 barrels of the forty-eight years end- 

 ing with 1866. The total catch of the mackerel fleet from 

 1886 to 1908 was 978,357 barrels. The catch of salt mack- 

 erel for the three years, 1883-1885, exceeded by 20,000 

 barrels the total catch of salt mackerel for the last twenty- 

 three years. During this period of decadence the industry 

 has fallen off to about twenty per cent of the volume main- 

 tained from the active inception of the industry to the end 

 of the period of prosperity in 1885. Not since the year 

 1814 has there been so few salt mackerel taken as in the 

 year 1906, when the catch was only 10,136 barrels. 



What reason can be offered in explanation of this re- 

 markable decline of the mackerel industry during the last 

 twenty-three years? No certain cause, no satisfactory rea- 

 son, has yet been found. Allowance should be made for 

 the increase of the fresh mackerel trade during the past 

 few years when considering the falling off in the salt mack- 

 erel output; also, the decrease in the amount of tonnage 

 employed in the fishery means a decrease in the average 

 annual catch. Other reasons have been advanced, but not 

 any one of them, nor all of them taken together, can offer 

 a satisfactory solution to the puzzle. 



Viewed historically, the story of the mackerel fishery for 

 the last forty years centers about three events, the develop- 

 ment of the southern spring fishery by the introduction 

 of purse-seines for catching the fish, and the use of ice for 

 preserving them; the extension of the privilege of inshore 



