FISH WASTE, PAST AND PRESENT. 



By Dr. S. P. Bartlett, 

 U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, Quincy, III. 



In presenting this paper I wish to say that I have no idea 

 that I am stating anything that is particularly new, or much that 

 is educational. I presume that this and kindred subjects will be 

 fully covered by abler men than myself, but it is possible that it 

 may introduce into the discussion some features peculiar to certain 

 localities and therefore not touched upon by others. I intend 

 to deal particularly with conditions as I have known them on the 

 Mississippi and Illinois rivers. 



Away back there more years than I care to contemplate now, 

 when then there were no protective laws, the supply of buffalo, 

 the principal market fish, was so large that people seemed to take 

 it for granted that it was inexhaustible. Bass, crappie, sunfish, 

 perch, etc., bore little part in the commercial lists, and as I have 

 said, the buffalo was the food fish for the markets. With an 

 improvidence hard to understand, the farmers and the fishermen 

 took advantage of the season when these fish most needed pro- 

 tection, the spawning season, when the fish, rolling in shallow 

 water, became easy victims. With any and every kind of device 

 they took them by the thousands, and, unfit for food at that 

 season, they were not only destroying them but their natural 

 increase as well. 



Taken in such immense quantities, they had to be marketed 

 at once, if saved at all. They were shipped by boat, generally to 

 St. Louis, from points all along the Illinois and Mississippi rivers, 

 in barrels, sugar hogsheads, crockery crates, boxes, anything 

 procurable, dressed if time permitted, or rough when it did not. 

 So many were offered, at times, for shipment that I have seen a 

 large proportion refused by the boats, and such as were left 

 spoiled of course, as no ice was used. The boats being en route 

 for only ten to twelve hours at most, the fish were packed and 

 shipped, if possible, the day they were caught. Most of the fish 

 thus shipped were on consignment, and investigation showed 



