186 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



lower price, and they are considered by the Southern people a much superior article 

 of food. 



Q. Is it preferred to mackerel as a salted fish ? — A. The persons familiar with mack- 

 erel and with mullet from whom I have made inquiries— I never tasted salt mullet — 

 give the preference to mullet. It is a fatter, sweeter, and better fish, and of rather 

 larger size. They grade up to 90 to a barrel of 200 pounds, and go down to three- 

 quarters of a pound, and as a salt fish the preference is given by all from whom I 

 have inquired to the mullet. 



Q. Do you think the failure of the mackerel market in the Southern and Southwest- 

 ern States is largely attributable to the introduction of mullet f — A. I cannot say 

 that, but I imagine it must have a very decided influence. 



Q. Can the mullet be caught as easily as mackerel?— A. More easily. It is entirely 

 a shore fish, and is taken with seines hauled up on the banks by men who have no 

 capital, but who are able to command a row-boat with which to lay out their seines, 

 and they sometimes catch 100 barrels a day per man, and sometimes as many as 500 

 barrels have been taken at a single haul. The capital invested is only the boat, the 

 seine, perhaps 100 or 200 yards long, the salt necessary for preserving the fish, and 

 splitting boards and barrels. 



Q. Can pounds be used? — A. They have not been used, and I doubt whether they 

 could be used. Pounds are not available in the sandy regions of the South. 



Q. They are taken by seining ?— A. Yes, seines can be used. This work is entirely 

 prosecuted by natives of the coast, and about two-thirds of the coast population are 

 employed in the capture of these fish. 



Q. Then the business has grown very much ?— A. It has grown very rapidly. 

 Q. When was i t first known to you as a fish for the market ?— A. I never knew any- 

 thing about it until 1872. 



Q. Then it has been known during only five years ?— A. I cannot say ; it has been 

 known to me that length of time. 



Q. During that time the business has very much increased '.— A. I am so informed ; 

 I cannot speak personally. All my information of it is from reports made to me in 

 replies to circulars issued in 1872 and 1873. I have not issued a mullet circular since 

 that time, when I issued a special circular asking information regarding the mullet. 



Q. Then it is your opinion that the mullet has become, to some extent, and will be- 

 come, an important source of food supply ?— A. It is destined, I suppose, to be a very 

 formidable rival and competitor of the mackerel. I know in 1872 a single county in 

 North Carolina put up 70,000 barrels of mullet, a single county of five States covering 

 the mullet region. 



Q. Repeat that statement.— A. I say 70,000 barrels of mullet were packed in Car- 

 teret County, North Carolina, in 1872— one county in the States of Virginia, North 

 Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, where mullet comes in great abun- 

 dance during two or three months of the year. It is during the spawning season of the 

 mullet that it is taken in this quantity, and mullet roes form a special delicacy over 

 which every Southerner exults. It is a separate business, the roes being smoked and 

 salted and sold in large quantities. 



Q. Perhaps a reason— to get into the region of political economy— why mullet- 

 fishing was not prosecuted formerly, was that the Southern people were not fishing- 

 people under the slave system ?— A. They probably had not a proper method of taking 

 them. They used more casting nets than seines. 



Q. State to the Commission what mode of fishing and what kinds of fish are caught 

 on the south of the New England coast, south of Cape Cod. Is it not a great region 

 for fish ?— A. The variety of fish taken on the shores south of Cape Cod is very great, 

 and constitutes a very important element in the food resources of the country. Many 

 of them are fish of very great value as food, some selling, as high as one dollar per 

 pound, every pound of that fish that can be brought into market bringing never less 

 than 60 cents and up to one dollar per pound. Other fish range from 20 cents, 35 



