124 Fish Culturists' Association. 



my interest, and to prevent, if possible, the introduction of the 

 horrid fishes, if I may so speak, among the better and innocent 

 kind. 



The President : Mr. Blackford has given a great deal of 

 attention to the results of all our efforts ; that is, the quantity of 

 fish that come into the market. I believe he is not thoroughly 

 prepared with accurate statistics, being a good deal pressed by 

 the necessities of this meeting, the weight of which fell very 

 largely upon him, but I think he can give us in a rough way 

 what will be interesting to us. 



Mr. Blackford : Mr. President, it was intimated to me 

 previous to the meeting that it would be the pleasure of the 

 Association to hear some facts in connection with the marketing 

 of fish, but as the President says I was pressed with the 

 necessities of this meeting just at that time, and had to devote 

 my time to other matters, I thought I might say a few words, 

 however, in reference to the supply of the various kinds of 

 choice fish in our market, and I will speak first of the pompano. 

 In the latter part of 1876 we received large quantities of 

 pompano from Pensacola. They were shipped here by express 

 in such quantities that the price which had previous to that 

 time been from one to two dollars a pound, dropped right down 

 to twenty-five or thirty cents. In a few months after that we 

 received large consignments of pompano from Baltimore that 

 were caught in the vicinity of Chesapeake Bay. They were 

 caught in such quantities that the market became glutted with 

 them there and they were shipped all over the country, a large 

 portion of them to New York, and the price declined to ten 

 cents per pound. Now the pompano is really worth more 

 money, in comparison with other fish, than that ; and the low 

 price may be attributed to the ignorance of the people, generally 

 of the merits of the pompano. Probably there are a number of 



