■538 REPORT OF THE COMMISSlOlSrER OF FISHERIES. 



raisers also convene to determiiie tlie price that shall be asked for carp. 

 It is stated that from 200,000 to 300,000 fish are sold at Cottbus in a 

 season, representing an aggregate weight of 800,000 to 1,000,000 

 pounds. After being weighed the fish are transferred to perforated 

 boats — what we would call live- cars — and are transported down the 

 canals and rivers to the large cities, where they are to be consumed. 

 This is a slow and laborious journey, the cars often liaving to be car- 

 ried over shallow places on rollers, and a week is required to get the 

 fish to Berlin, while to reach Hamburg and Madgebiu'g takes four or 

 five weeks. This is in striking contrast to our method of packing the 

 fish in ice and shipping them 500 miles or more to market in a couple 

 of da3\s. The German method has the advantage of getting them there 

 alive. 



Just when and whence the carp came into England is not known. 

 It is generall}^ conceded to have reached there, however, between 1051 , 

 when it was not mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Dictionary of ^Elfric, 

 and 1486, the da,te of first publication of the "Boke of St. Albans," 

 Vv'here it is spoken of as '"a dej^ntous f3^sshe: but there ben but 

 fewe in Englonde" (see p. 529). Linna?us puts the date of intro- 

 duction into England as 1600, and it is sometimes attributed to IMas- 

 call'^' in 1514; but probably' he is responsible ox\\y for the extension of 

 the range into Sussex (Day, 1880-1884, p. 163). In the priv}^ purse 

 expenses of King Heurv VIII, in 1532, various entries are made of 

 rewards to persons for bringing "carpes to the king" (Yarrell, 1836, 

 vol. i, p. 300, from Pickering's edition of ^Yaltori, p. 207, note). All 

 recent writers agree that the oft-quoted " doggerel lines of — 



' Turkies, carp, hop, jjickerel, and beer 

 Came into England all in one year' 



may be considered interesting as verses, but not faithful representa- 

 tions of facts." 



Day (1880-1884, p. 163) gives the date of the introduction of carp 

 into Sweden as 1560* and into Denmark as 1660; but de Broca (1876, 

 ]). 279, footnote) says they were taken to Denmark more than a hun- 

 dred 5-ears earlier, in 1550, by Pierre Oxe. Malmgren (1883), in an 

 address to the bureau of agriculture of the imperial senate of Finland, 

 advises against anv^ attempt to raise carp in that countrj', as he thinks 

 that on account of the climatic conditions it would not pay. They 

 were introduced into Finland in 1861, when Chamberlain Baron v. 

 Linder placed some in the ponds of his estate of Svarta, but they are 

 said to have died out after a few years. Some attempts were made 

 prior to 1861, but they were all failures. Malmgren sa^ys that Hol- 

 stein and Courland are the most northerly countries where carp culture 



a Sometimes written " Marshall. " 



*Iii his "Fishes of Malabar," Day (1865, p. xii) remarks: "Block observes that in his time, 1782, 

 owing to the degeneration of the species in the north, due to the coldness of the climate, several 

 vessels were yearly dispatehed from Prussia to Stockholm with further supplies of live carp." 



