THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. 23 



per cent., to the weights of> the herring and mackerel. We have thus ' 

 an aggregate which we are sure is very far below the proper figures. 



Within the last two years a very great increase in the demand for 

 fish fresh from the sea has sprung up in the United States, most por- 

 tions of the interior being now regularly supplied. To this end the 

 improved methods of preservation and transportation have greatly con- 

 duced. The use of ice in its various applications,* the employment of 

 refrigerating chests and refrigerator steamboats and cars and other de- 

 vices, permits the transportation of fish many miles in a brief space of 

 time. During the present year salmon have been loaded in cars on the 

 Eestigouche Eiver and delivered in New York in thirty hours. The 

 fish are packed in boxes with snow and placed in a refrigerator car 

 supplied with a quantity of ice, so that on arriving in New York the 

 snow is generally entirely unmelted. Fish are packed in chests in Florida 

 and delivered in New York by steamer in the same manner. Fish 

 taken in pounds or gill-nets or with lines along the coast are concen- 

 trated at shipping points and forwarded by rail or in smacks, properly 

 iced. They are then repacked and sent by various lines of conveyance 

 to their distant markets. 



Such is now the method and system adopted in this business that it 

 becomes very difficult to obtain fresh fish in seaport towns, the ma- 

 chinery of collecting and transporting being so arranged as to prevent, 

 to a very great extent, the diversion of any portion of the stock to the 

 local consumption. Indeed, it is not at all uncommon for fish to be 

 sent directly away from a village on or near the coast to New York or 

 Boston in a general shipment to market, and afterwards returned to 

 its starting point for consumption. One supposed evidence of an 

 increasing scarcity of fish is the increase in price at such stations. 

 This is, however, a fallacious argument, as the market is regulated by 

 the rates obtainable in the centers of supply rather than elsewhere, 

 and the local prices necessarily must correspond. The proprietor of a 

 weir or pound generally has his entire catch pre-engaged to the whole- 

 sale dealer in New York or Boston, and he cannot keep his accounts 

 satisfactorily if he permits any portion to be diverted by the way. 

 Formerly, before the introduction of the use of ice and the improved 

 system of transportation, whenever a great catch of fish was made, the 

 principal market would be found at a point on or near the landing, the 

 fish being taken in wagons and peddled in the interior, but always over 

 a limited area, the result being that prices were usually or frequently 

 very low, and not remunerative, in cases of a glut in the market. It 

 is to the interest of fishermen, of course, that there should.be no danger 

 of such a glut, and that all the catch be disposed at a fair price. 



* In 1874 there were 25,000 tons of ice brought from Norway to Hull, for the pres- 

 ervation of fish taken by .trawl nets. 



