[89] HISTORY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY. 



$6 a barrel, making $240, and 10 barrels of clam bait, worth $8 a barrel, 

 making $80.* 



Major Low's statement, copied from the trip-book of the schooner 

 Oliver Eldredge, which sailed to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence Augusts, 

 1875, arrived at Gloucester November 2, 1875, having been absent two 

 months and twenty-eight days, obtaining 1!24 barrels of mess mackerel, 

 worth $1,771.83, shows that she fitted out with 55 barrels of slivered 

 pogies, at $.5.50 per barrel, making $337.50, and 7 barrels of clams, at 

 $'J, making £42. 



In 1867, when almost the entire mackerel fleet fished with hooks, the 

 amount of menhaden bait consumed by Gloucester alone amounted, by 

 the estimate of Mr. Joseph O. Proctor, to 0,500 barrels, and the total 

 consumption by the United States of mackerel bait must have exceeded 

 25,000 barrels. In addition to this more than 1,000 barrels of clams 

 were used. In 1877 another estimate was made of the quantity con- 

 sumed by Gloucester. The purse-seiners were then in a large majority. 

 The whole amount consumed by a seining vessel does not exceed 5 or 

 barrels in a season. Gloucester had, in 1877, about 50 " mackerel-hook 

 ers," using about 2,400 barrels of slivers, while the seining fleet used 

 about GOO barrels more. The entire amount of menhaden bait consumed 

 by the mackerel tleet of the United States in 1877 did not probably ex- 

 ceed 8,000 to 0,000 barrels of slivers, or 21,000 to 27,000 barrels of round 

 fish. 



The menhaden used for bait in the mackerel fisheries was formerly, 

 when a larger quantity was in demand than at present, obtained to a 

 considerable extent from Gloucester vessels fishing expressly for men- 

 haden in the vicinity of Tape Ann and in the Gulf of Maine. 



Ca.pt. F. J. Babson, of Gloucester, whose account of the bait fishery of 

 Cape Ann is quoted elsewhere, states that in 1873 there were over 60,000 

 barrels of round menhaden taken in his district, while in the same year 

 vessels belonging to the Maine Oil and Guano Association sold of bait 

 2,977 barrels; in 1874, 10,400; in 1877, 10,705. From the bait fisheries 

 about Marblehead and in the vicinity of Provincetown, according to Mr. 

 Lowry, from 1,000 to 2,000 barrels of bait were taken in 1873. At 

 Chatham, from 1872 to 1877, the average catch was about 5,000 barrels. 

 A large portion of all of these fish, however, was sold to the vessels en- 

 gaged in the George's Bank cod-fishery. Considerable quantities also 

 were obtained about Salem and in the Merrimac Biver, a portion of 

 which went to the mackerel fishery. 



It was the custom of many of the vessels belonging to the spring 

 mackerel tleet to devote a considerable time to obtaining a supply of 

 bait for their own use during the summer fishery. In addition to this 

 quite a number of vessels were fitted out each spring to go to Seacon- 

 net and other places in that vicinity for the purpose of securing cargoes 

 of menhaden slivers to sell to the early fleet going to the Bay of Saint 



* .Proceedings of the Halifax Commission, 1877, Appendix L, p. 3:i4. 



