ECONOMIC USES OF NON-EDIBLE FISH. 63 



non-edible fish supply probably exceeds that of those fishes which 

 are used for food. 



About twenty years ago a beginning was made in utilizing 

 non-edible fish ; but, from one cause or other prohibitive State 

 legislation, want of knowledge as to the best ways of obtaining fish 

 products, and various other less important impediments the in- 

 dustry is still far from that position of commercial and industrial 

 importance to which it is justly entitled. But, notwithstanding 

 the impediments to which I have referred, and although the 

 operations of the factories engaged in the utilization of non- 

 edible fishes are confined to the production of oil and guano 

 from menhaden, in the year when Prof. Goode made the estimate 

 above quoted over eight hundred thousand dollars' worth of 

 crude and dried guano was produced, and 2,426,589 gallons of oil 

 were obtained. 



Bearing these figures in mind, and remembering that Prof. 

 Baird estimated that " twelve hundred million millions " of men- 

 haden are destroyed annually by bluefish during four months 

 in the summer and fall and that this destruction is impercep- 

 tible in the myriads of these fishes which abound on the coast, it 

 is apparent that, under favorable conditions, the value of men- 

 haden to the commerce of the country could easily be developed 

 to an extent that would at least equal the combined values of all 

 our food fisheries. 



It would be extremely difficult to fix the time when fish was 

 first employed for fertilizing. We are assured, however, that long 

 before the advent of Europeans on this continent, the Indians 

 used menhaden for raising agricultural produce. The early colo- 

 nists imitated the natives ; and in 1632 Thomas Morton, of Vir- 

 ginia, wrote : " There is a fish (by some called shadds, by some 

 allizes) that at the spring of the yeare pass up the river to spawn 

 in the ponds, and are taken in such multitudes . . . that the 

 inhabitants doung their ground with them." Eleven years pre- 

 vious to Morton's record Governor Bradford tells how " in April, 

 1621," the colonists began to sow corn, "in which service Squanto 

 (an Indian) stood them in good stead, showing them both y** man- 

 ner how to set it and after how to dress & tend it. Also he tould 

 them axcepte they got fish & set with it (in these old grounds) 

 it would come to nothing ; and he showed them y* in y^ midle of 

 Aprill they should have store enough come up y' brooke by 

 which they begane to build, and taught them how to take it." 



Still later, and just one hundred years ago, in the Transac- 

 tions of the Society for the Promotion of Agriculture, Arts, and 

 Manufactures, instituted in the State of New York, Hon. Ezra 

 L'Hommedieu says: " Experiments made by using the fish called 

 menhaden, or mossbunkers, as a manure have succeeded beyond 



