INLAND FISHERIES. 27 



Uses. — This is one of the most important of our food fishes, and 

 surpassed in public estimation only by the Spanish mackerel and the 

 pompano. It may be said to furnish a large part of the supply to the 

 Middle and Northern States. It is a standard fish in New York, Bos- 

 ton and other seaports, and is carried in great numbers into the inte- 

 rior. Its flesh is very sweet and savory, but it does not keep very well. 

 In the Vineyard Sound the fishermen are in the habit of crimping their 

 fish, or killing them by cutting their throats in such a manner that they 

 bleed freely. Everyone who has opportunities for observing admits 

 that fish thus treated are far superior to any others. Great quantities 

 of blue-fish are frozen in New York for winter consumption. They 

 are still considered unfit for food on our Southern coast, and even in 

 the markets of Washington, District of Columbia, I have frequently 

 been stopped by fish-dealers who asked me to assure their customers 

 that blue-fish were eatable. They are growing into favor everywhere, 

 however, just as they did in Boston. Captain Atwood tells that in 

 1865 but very few were sold in Boston, and that the demand has been 

 increasing ever since. When he first went to Boston with a load of 

 blue-fish he got two cents a pound for them ; the second year they 

 were scarcer and h^ got two and one-half cents, and the year after- 

 wards three cents." 



These fish have the last season been plenty all along the coast, and, 

 at times so very plenty that they have been sold as low as one cent a 

 pound. An instance is reported to us where the captain of a smack 

 declined a load offered as a gift, he having just left New York, where 

 there was no market for them. 



There has been good fishing all the season. 



BASS. 



The past season has been an exceptionally good one. If this fish 

 has not been so plenty as at some former times, the fishing has been 

 very good, and the sportsmen have made good catches. The fish have 

 been large. We hear of two gentlemen who caught seven hundred 



