THE GERMAN CARP IN THE UNITED STATES. 617 



fish when they are on the floor ordinary large scoop-shovels are used. 

 Each day the boxes of carp are shipped either by freight or express to 

 the large cities, where they are in demand. From the fact that some 

 of the fish from Lake Erie at times reach New York still in a living 

 condition, it will be seen that there is no need that the fish should be 

 cleaned before shipment, even did not the consumption of the greater 

 portion by Jews demand that they be shipped " in the round." 



Some firms, when the supply of carp exceeds the demand at the 

 time, freeze a part of the catch and hold them over in this way, but 

 the frozen fish do not find so ready a sale. 



EXTENT OF THE FISHERIES. 



The amount and value of the carp output of Lake Erie has been 

 steadily on the increase for the past eight or nine years. The fish 

 first began to be handled by the dealers in about 1890 or 1891, but 

 had no extensive market until .about 1895. At a fish house in Port 

 Clinton it was stated that when they first began to be taken they were 

 thrown in with the mullets and sold at 1 cent a pound, and the 

 dealers did not want them at that price. They were then put on the 

 list as German carp, at 3 cents, and at once found a ready sale. 



That the fishery had not become established in 1892 is shown by the 

 fact that carp are not mentioned under the "Products of Lake Erie 

 fisheries," in the Report of the United States Fish Commission for 

 that year (p. cl), nor in the paper by Smith in the same report on 

 the fisheries of the Great Lakes/' They were being used more or 

 less in other places, however, and Smith (1898, p. 494) estimates the 

 amount of carp taken in the waters of the United States, exclusive of 

 the Great Lakes, in 1894, as 1,448,217 pounds, valued at $37,683. 

 The catch from Illinois was more than four times that from any other 

 state, Iowa coming next. The Lake Erie fisheries had increased 

 enormously by 1899, and Townsend (1901) in reporting for that year 

 says (p. 178): 



The catch of carp in Lake Erie in 1899 amounted to 3,633,679 pounds, valued at 

 $51,456. The report of the Illinois Fishermen's Association shows that the catch of 

 carp in the Illinois River is greater than that of all other species combined, the 

 quantity of carp taken in 1899 amounting to 6,332,990 pounds, valued at $189,980. 

 The yield of carp from the Ohio River and two of its tributaries, the Cumberland 

 and Wabash rivers, during the same year, amounted to 113,387 pounds, worth 

 $6,654. 



These figures show an increase in the quantity of carp derived from the above- 

 named waters amounting to nearly nine times the quantity yielded six years ago. 



aAlthough the Lake Erie and Illinois carp fisheries had not become established at this time, these 

 fish from eastern waters were finding a ready sale in the New York markets. This is shown by the 

 following statement of Mr. John H. Brakeley (1889a): " I have sold several hundred pounds of carp 

 during the past autumn in the New York market, the commission merchants getting 15 cents a 

 pound for them. I am satisfied that it will pay to feed carp, and shall do considerable of it next 

 season." 



