ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 419 



purchasing power of the proceeds decreased with the decreasing value of 

 the dollar. 



As is readily seen, the spectacular rise of the shrimp fishery, viewed alone, 

 appears to be a great step forward for the fisheries industry; actually, it 

 appears to be a shift from the oyster and mainly inter-regional, from one 

 portion of the fisheries to another, with a decline in pounds, a standstill 

 in actual dollars and decline in dollars of constant purchasing power and with 

 no visible effect on the total national curves which, as said at the beginning 

 of this Section, are determined by demand, and not by supply. 



RESUME OF QUANTITATIVE FISHERY ECONOMICS 



The total quantity of food fish produced in the United States is the total 

 of the sales of all the retail outlets throughout the country; it does not appear 

 to be determined or appreciably affected by the variations in abundance of 

 any species, or of all species of fish, or by any other biological influence in 

 the water. The out-take from the waters everywhere appears to be small in 

 comparison with photosynthetic productivity per square mile, the area fished, 

 and the fertilizers in the water; and compared also with the yield of agri- 

 culture. The yield of the United States fisheries appears small in comparison 

 with that of numerous other fishing areas of the world. 



The greater part of the fish produced in the United States, as elsewhere, 

 is human food; the average commercial retail weight of all kinds of food 

 consumed per year per capita of United States population is nearly constant 

 (1909-1940) at 1,520 pounds (average annual deviation ±2.0 per cent); 

 about 9.5 per cent of the total is meat, poultry and fish; fish (whole as 

 landed) is about 14 per cent of this group; in gross weight it is slightly more, 

 and in net edible, considerably less, than one per cent of the whole diet. 



The total production of food fish (Atlantic-Gulf-Great Lakes-Pacific 

 regions) over the 54-year period 1 887-1940 considered as a whole, increased, 

 though not uniformly in proportion to population; in rate of increase, 

 fisheries lagged behind population from about 1900 to 192 1; with intro- 

 duction of improvements (filleting, packaging, quick freezing, chain store 

 merchandising, etc.), fish production increased faster than population from 

 192 1 to 1940, so that the production per capita for 1935-40 was slightly 

 higher than for any earlier period of record. 



Production in the older fisheries of the Atlantic-Gulf regions also in- 

 creased, but not in keeping with the rate of increase of the population of 

 the eastern States; the annual per capita eastern production at no time 

 after 192 1 equalled that of 1908 and earlier. Production of the Great Lakes 

 was about 17 to 25 per cent (depending on what set of statistics is used) 

 less in the inter-war period than it was in 1908 and earlier. 



