360 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



The ocean contains and could supply a practically unlimited amount of 

 meal and fertilizer of highest quality not only from the inedible residues of 

 fish now caught, but from "trash" fish — such as starfish, sea urchins, skates, 

 sculpins, horseshoe crabs, sharks, lizard fish, mussels, porcupine fish, trigger 

 fish, fool fish, leatherjackets, sea anemones, jellyfish, sponges — in fact, all 

 the odds and ends that are not otherwise useful. Some of the richest agri- 

 cultural land in the world is the northern coast of France which was fer- 

 tilized for centuries with seaweed. The utilization of this oceanic material 

 would go a long way to promote the production of food for man. It might 

 even be biologically helpful to the fisheries in removing some of the enemies, 

 and competition for food, of the fishes we most esteem. 



The sea could thus not only supply man with edible food, but could 

 forever furnish replenishment of fertility to the soil for agricultural pro- 

 duction and the nitrogenous nourishment of animals. It is all a matter of cost. 



The sale of fish and other products for human food is governed only in 

 part by price in relation to scientific calculation of nutritive values; demand 

 and price are heavily influenced also by such qualities as taste, odor and 

 appearance of the product, and habits, whims and prejudices of the con- 

 sumers. Meal is purchased by the chicken grower and farmer solely on very 

 close and unemotional calculation of cost and performance against the 

 market prices of their products. The esthetic feelings of chickens and farm 

 animals are not taken into consideration. 



Apart from the oil content, the average water content of fish is about 

 80 per cent and the flesh-and-bone content about 20 per cent. On the average, 

 wet fish, less oil, dries to about 1/5 of its weight, so that each one dollar 

 of cost per ton wet weight becomes $5 on the dry weight. Moreover, oil 

 itself is generally of value only insofar as it can be economically extracted 

 and sold as oil; it cannot be extracted economically unless the percentage 

 is relatively high. Most fishes average about 5 per cent oil content which is 

 rather low for economic removal by present methods. Five per cent oil in 

 wet fish is 25 per cent in dry meal, which is objectionable in feed and useless 

 in fertilizer. The fat content of the residue meal from oily fishes is reduced 

 to about 6 per cent or 7 per cent by efficient methods of manufacture. 



With the average value of fish meal in 1940 less than $50 per ton,^^ the 

 fish would be worth only ^-2 cent per pound even without cost of preserva- 

 tive, handling, manufacture, overhead, or profit. It has been found in the 

 New England trawler fishery that it does not pay to bring in trash fish even 

 after they are caught because labor cannot be compensated for handling, 

 to say nothing of preservation, without making the material too expensive 

 for the manufacture of fish meal. It is therefore a disconcerting fact that 



28. These costs and values of 1940 are of course now changed greatly, but their position rela- 

 tive to the value of the dollar probably remains or will remain unchanged. 



