410 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



This fish price index is fully weighted, since the 1926 price is the total value 

 divided by the total number of pounds of all food fish produced (in the 

 Atlantic-Gulf regions) in that year. The price of any particular fish in any 

 particular year, divided by the food fish price index for that year gives a 

 price for that fish in terms of the general level of all food fish prices of 

 the Atlantic-Gulf for that year. In the table, the fish price index is adjusted 

 to make 1890 = 100 in every case. If, in a series of years, this food fish 

 index price remains constant at i.oo for any particular fish, then the price 

 of that fish merely moved with the price of fish generally; if the index 

 subsequently to 1890 increased or decreased, the price of that fish varied 

 accordingly with respect to the general average price movement of all fish, 

 i.e., it had a trend of its own. Similarly, change or constancy in the price 

 of a particular fish in terms of the All Commodity Wholesale Price Index 

 indicates whether the price of that fish is doing better or worse than or 

 following the general average of all commodities. 



The behavior patterns of individual species are highly diverse, each 

 governed by its own peculiarities and circumstances. The production of 

 codfish (salt fish converted to and included as fresh weights, distorting 

 the price in 1890) decreased sharply from 1890 to 1908 and thereafter 

 remained about constant, but between 1908 and 1940 declined from 1.6 to 

 1.2 pounds per capita of a growing population; the apparent value of the 

 total codfish product is nearly unchanged over the entire period, but its 

 exchange value for other goods was only about three-fourths as much in 

 1940 as in 1890. Diminished production of cod per capita did not serve to 

 support the prices, or, demand from an increasing human population was not 

 sufficient to maintain a price that would command increased production. 

 Haddock, however, which in edible qualities, both esthetic and dietetic, is 

 almost indistinguishable from cod, and yields the same percentage of edible 

 flesh, behaved much better. With a volume of production in the latest period 

 of three times that of the earliest, and nearly twice per capita of population, 

 actual prices of haddock increased by 60 per cent, advancing about 60 

 per cent more than fish prices generally and since 1908 keeping up with 

 all-commodity index prices. While codfish was losing ground in price on a 

 30 per cent decline in per capita production, haddock prices increased on a 

 doubled per capita production, and the purchasing power of the proceeds of 

 haddock production increased more than fourfold. The price of haddock was 

 lower than that of cod in the early period but surpassed it in about 1928. See 

 p. 402 for conditions affecting prices. 



The catch of eastern mackerel {Scomber scombrus) was in 1940 nearly 

 four times what it was in 1890 (salt converted to fresh), but only about 

 50 per cent greater per capita. Yet actual price was in the 1940 period less 

 than 40 per cent of what it had been in 1890 or 1908, and index prices relative 



