24 



U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 



SAN JOSE. 

 [By Henry S. "Watennan, consul, November 15, 1921.J 



The fish caught in this district are those common to these waters, 

 such as red snapper, barracuda, Spanish mackerel, etc. There is no 

 regular fish-curing industry, although fish are occasionally cured for 

 consumption in the interior of the country and for holy week. This 

 curing consists simply of splitting the fish in half and hanging in 

 the sun. No fish are exported. The statistics for imports of fish 

 for 1920, compared with 1914, are as follows: 



Note.— In the above table the figures for the United States Include American goods reexported from 

 Panama to Costa Rica. The normal value of the colon is 46J cents, at which rate all statistics are compiled, 

 but at present it is worth about 26 cents. 



Although the consumption of imported fish is normally large for a 

 country of less than 500,000 population, the imports in 1920 were 

 abnormally large. This was due to the high prices of coffee from 

 1918 to 1920, which brought considerable wealth into the country, 

 and also to the fact that duties on all canned goods were to be raised, 

 which resulted in the placing of large orders in order to retain the 

 advantage of the low duties. A large importer of these products 

 states as his opinion that the coming years will not exceed 50 per 

 cent of the amount imported in 1920. The principal variety of fish 

 imported is codfish, which comes in tins and boxes containing 25 

 pounds each and in boxes containing 25 paper packages of 1 pound 

 each. Other dried fish is imported in kegs of from 25 to 100 pounds, 

 and fish in brine comes in kegs of 8 and 12 pounds and in tins of 10 

 and 25 pounds. 



No fish products are imported for reexportation, as this would be 

 impracticable because of the high duties. The duties are per kilo- 

 gram gross weight and are payable at the gold value of 46^ cents 

 for one colon. As a consequence, all packing should be as light as 



