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HISTOEY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY. 



MACKEEEL EXPOETS OF BEITISH PROVINCES. 



Statement XV. — Showing the quantity and value of pickled mackerel exported to the United 



States from the Dominion of Canada, ]t t 7'A to 1879, also from Prince Edward Island, 1857 

 to 187:J, and from Newfoundland, 1853 to 1876. 



VII I.— MATERIALS FOR A CHRONOLOGICAL HIS- 

 TORY OF THE MACKEREL FISHERY OF NORTH 

 AMERICA. 



M. — Extracts from records and reminiscenses of fishermen. 



50. — Seventeenth century. 



The mackerel fishery has been of great importance to the United 

 States botii from a commercial standpoint and as a motive for the forma- 

 tion of treaties with the Government of Great Britain and the establish- 

 ment of rates of tariff intended to regulate the importation of mackerel 

 from the British provinces. Its history from year to year has been so 

 varied, the conditions under which it was prosecuted in successive years 

 so changeable, that it seems worth while to present here a series of notes 

 chronologically arranged which have been gathered from various sources 

 and which illustrate the changes in method and in result which have 

 been recorded by observers from 1020 to the present time. 



1629 to 1035. — Abundance of mackerel on the coast of new 

 england in the first half of the seventeenth century. 



Francis Higginson, in his "Journal of His Voyage to New England," 

 1629, speaks of seeing "many schools of mackerel, infinite multitudes, 



