ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 349 



fishes the fisherman should catch and, by corollary reasoning, what fishes 

 should be sold. 



Domestic Household and Institutional Consumption. It is generally con- 

 sidered in the trade that restaurants, hotel dining rooms, and institutions 

 are relatively more important consumers of fish than private homes, though 

 we have no direct statistical data from which to make the comparison. 

 Sherman et al. (1944) in a national survey of domestic food consumption 

 (mostly after Easter) in 1942 indicate that the consumption of fish in homes 

 was 13.3 pounds per capita of the whole country, which can be compared 

 with upwards of 20 pounds production (we do not have the data for 1942 

 for all fish). Since the per capita for homes only is less than that for all out- 

 lets, restaurants and homes, it is inferrible that the per capita of restaurants 

 is greater than that in homes. The data on which these calculations are based, 

 however, are none too reliable. 



In judging the market potentialities of a region such as North Carolina 

 with a small urban and large rural population, consideration has to be given 

 not only to the difficulties and overhead costs of delivering fish to small 

 communities, but also to the relative importance of restaurants and private 

 homes. 



Resultant Effect of Determinants on Amount of Fish in the Dietary. We 

 have mentioned a few of the factors favorable and unfavorable which 

 taken all together determine how much fish on the average people buy, viz., 

 the esthetic (or unesthetic) qualities of odors, bones, insipidity, belly filling 

 satisfaction or lack of it, superstitions and beliefs, direct and indirect effects 

 of religious customs and traditions, economic difficulties which increase 

 costs between shore and consumers and minimize volume of sales, spotty 

 availability, unfamiliarity of the public with the many kinds of fish, dis- 

 continuity of supply — and such favorable qualities as those possessed by 

 the gourmet items, lightness and digestibility, suitability for people of 

 sedentary habits, and escape from monotony of meats — all these factors, 

 favorable and unfavorable, taken together fix the amount of fish that is 

 admitted to the inelastic dietary. These factors are objective determinants, 

 some of which can be, but none have been, measured quantitatively by 

 economic research; they are no less potent, indeed they seem to us more 

 potent, in determining the magnitude and prosperity of the fisheries industry 

 than biological and legislative factors of production. Aside from the effects of 

 booms and depressions, inflations, deflations and wars, all of which are tem- 

 porary, there appears in the record so far no reason to expect any spontaneous 

 events that will help the fisheries of this country as a whole to any higher 

 degree of prosperity than they now have. The chief problem of the fisheries 

 industry is to improve its distribution and to develop the markets in regions 

 where consumption is now far below the national average. 



