G2 REPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



purse-seine fully supplies its place. For the smaller fisheries in bays 

 and mouths of rivers our common nets are likewise used, only with this 

 difference, that the floats are not fastened to the net itself, but swim en 

 the surface of the water, fastened at short intervals to the strings con- 

 nected with the net. Common casting-nets are also used, and purse- 

 seines are sometimes used in this way simply by taking the puUing- 

 ropes off. 



An implement peculiar to the American bank-fisheries are the so-called 

 ''nippers," rings made of cotton yarn, used instead of gloves when 

 handling the ropes. A furrow or groove runs all along the outside of 

 these rings, and the ropes, whilst being hauled in, rest in this groove. 



A bank-schooner generally makes three to four trips every summer, 

 and, if the market is good, often realizes from $10,000 to $12,000 a 

 season. The codfish and halibut, which are prepared and salted on 

 board, are divided in about the same manner as in the Swedish and 

 Norwegian bank-fisheries: the owner of the schooner, who furnishes 

 the lines and other implements, receiving one-half and the crew the 

 other half of the net yield. The result of the mackerel and herring- 

 fisheries varies more than that of the bank-fisheries. The average sum 

 realized by mackerel-schooners is $8,000, and by herring-schooners 

 85,000 to $6,000, which is divided in the same manner as the result of the 

 bank-fisheries. The small schooners which carry on hue-fishing along 

 the coast, and sell their fish fresh on ice, realize, on an average, $4,000 

 to $5,000 annually, which sum is distributed in different ways, but gen- 

 crallj^, as with our small cod-fisheries, in such a manner that the owner 

 receives one-fourth and the crew the remaining three-fourths of the net 

 income (the owner's risk being, of course, considerably smaller). 



As the continent of North America, comprising the United States (now 

 including California and Oregon), extending from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific, and the Dominion of Canada, consumes nearly all the fish which 

 are caught by American fishermen, the fish are only prepared with a 

 view to rapid consumption. They are therefore nearly all shij^ped fresh 

 on ice, or sprinkled with salt and then dried or smoked a little. Codfish 

 does not, therefore, undergo the long drying process as with us, and in 

 Iceland, Kova Scotia, and Newfoundland, which supply distant markets, 

 f. g., Spain, Portugal, Italy, the West Indies, and Brazil, where only 

 well-dried fish can be sent. When the fish have been taken out of the 

 brine, either just as they are taken from the schooners or from large bar- 

 rels where they have been kept in brine, they are dried on poles stretched 

 a few feet from the ground, for three days, without being turned and 

 pressed, are packed in large boxes and shipped inland by railroad, sell- 

 ing at from 5 to 6 cents per pound. Fish i^repared in this manner wiU of 

 course not shrink much, and weigh heavy. Some kinds of fish, as for in- 

 stance the cod and pollock, after having been dried in the above-men- 

 tioned manner, are skinned, boned, and cut in narrow strips, put up in 

 small boxes weighing from 35 to 50 pounds each, and sent farther iu- 



