292 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 



consumed 011 our coasts, while in Cape Cod Bay alone over 100,000 barrels are turned 

 out of the weirs some seasons and left to decompose on the shores or drift out to sea. 



The increased attention paid to the utilization of refuse products of fish in some 

 parts of the United States, especially New England, where not many years ago they 

 were generally thrown away, marks an advance in our industrial life. Every waste 

 product of fish and other aquatic animals resulting from their cleaning, curing, and 

 canning has a commercial value in a crude state or after further manipulation, but in 

 most regions no regard is paid to anything but the actual flesh; and many thou- 

 sands of dollars are thus annually lost to a class that is least able to afford it. As 

 one instance of the loss our fishing interests are yearly incurring, mention may 

 be made of the economic value of the roe of fishes as an article of food. Practically, 

 the eggs of only two species of fishes — the sturgeon and mullet — are utilized in this 

 country, but there is hardly a fish whose roe is not suitable to be made into a valuable 

 caviar, which could meet with ready sale abroad as well as at home, and would be an 

 important addition to our fishery output, in that it would represent the expenditure 

 of little time and money and the sacrifice of no additional fish. In the utilization and 

 appreciation of our resources we can emulate the Chinese to decided advantage. 



Akin to the foregoing topic is the advantage which will accrue to our fisheries 

 through the occupation of new fishing-grounds and the adoption of new appliances 

 for the development of latent resources. 



The recent establishment by Texas capitalists of an extensive fishery for red snap- 

 pers and groupers on the distant offshore banks of the Gulf of Mexico is an important 

 event in the history of our southern fisheries. The advanced policy displayed in 

 having a fleet of sailing vessels remain on the fishing-grounds and in employing steam 

 vessels to take the catch to market affords a suggestive example to the entire country. 



The practical experiments made within two or three years and the explorations 

 by the vessels of the U. S. Fish Commission have demonstrated the existence of vast 

 deep-water areas on our coasts which are suitable for the prosecution of beam-trawling 

 and which will yield an almost unlimited supply of excellent fishes which now seldom 

 or never appear in our markets, including a number of flatfishes similar to the most 

 highly esteemed fishes of the European seas. 



The adoption of steam propulsion in our ocean food-fish fisheries, as already sug- 

 gested, may be expected to have a doubly beneficial influence by enabling the fisher- 

 men to develop tbe more remote grounds where fish are likely to be more plentiful, 

 and by relieving the present drain on the inshore waters. 



