304 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



no charge for the by-product wood sugar other than preparation expenses, 

 raw materials and power costs for wood yeast were estimated ... at about 

 1.5 cents per pound. Plant, labor and overhead costs would be added to 

 this figure depending upon the type of installation." Even this hoped-for 

 source of food does not compare with fish in edible value and cost. Sixteen 

 countries of Northern Europe in 1938 produced 3,580,000,000 pounds of 

 herring which were sold in the markets at average price equivalent to 1.02 

 cents per pound. 



In nutritive value fish proteins and fats can be taken as approximately 

 equal to those of domestic animals; fish generally are at least equal or 

 perhaps superior to land animals in content of vitamins and calcium, and 

 certainly superior in "trace" elements, iodine, copper, manganese, fluorine, 

 and several others, but inferior in fats and higher in water content.^ It can 

 scarcely be doubted that fish contain all the ten essential amino acids, those 

 which contain sulphur, viz., cystine and methionine, being especially note- 

 worthy. Recent works which we cannot review here indicate that fish flesh 

 is of high biological value as food, and that from the point of view of 

 national or world nutrition fish could serve as the equivalent, in every way, 

 of meat. 



Earning Power of the Fisheries. With all the advantages of indestructible 

 source and fundamentally lower cost, fishing does not have the reputation of 

 being a very profitable business or the source of large fortunes for individual 

 persons; even moderate fortunes are few and generally made by dealing in 

 rather than catching fish, and the industry remains small. Such wealth as 

 the fisheries produce is mostly diffused as livelihood for the fishermen, 

 dealers, and workers in coastal communities and as a valuable food for the 

 whole population. Since the fisheries do not offer much opportunity for 

 ready profit they have never been attractive to large amounts of venture 

 capital and the enterprise, research, and inventiveness that go with venture 

 capital on a large scale. They are therefore a relatively backward industry. 

 The explanation for the low earning power of the fishing business is to be 

 found not in one but in many of its industrial characteristics, which are 

 of the nature of handicaps at the source and throughout the distributive 

 mechanism. 



Fisheries an Extractive Commodity Industry. The fisheries are, along 

 with agriculture, forestry, and mining, an extractive commodity industry. 

 Manufacturing industries generally have protections of various kinds which 

 limit competition, such as patents, secret processes, well known brands and 



5. For data on food values of fish, see Atwater, (1892); Clark and Almy, (1918) *; Dill, 

 (1921); Manning, (1931) *; McCance and Shipp, (1933) *; Taylor, (1932) *; U. S. Bureau of 

 Fisheries (several authors) (1926) * (Those marked * contain bibliographies and further citations 

 of literature). 



