232 GREAT ABUNDANCE OF THIS FISH. 



they are readily seen and captured. They are commonly 

 sold on the spot at the rate of two dollars the waggon- 

 load, containing about a thousand fish. The largest 

 haul I remember to have heard of was through the surf 

 at Bridgehampton, at the end of the island. Eighty- 

 four waggon-loads or, in other words, eighty-four thou 

 sand of these fish were taken at a single haul. On the 

 coast of Massachusetts, they are used as bait for mack 

 erel, cod, and halibut, and many are packed away for 

 exportation to the West Indies. In 1836, fourteen hun 

 dred and eighty-eight barrels were thus salted down for 

 exportation.&quot;* 



A still larger haul than this last was taken in ^sewhaven 

 harbour in May 1848. A shoal of porpoises drove in the 

 fish, and, at one haul, 2.000,000 of them, averaging 

 three-quarters of a pound each in all 750 tons weight 

 were drawn in at a single haul. The farmers in the 

 neighbourhood bought them at one-half to three-quarters 

 of a dollar (2s. 2d. to 3s. 3d.) a thousand, and were 

 employed several days in carting them off. 



In consequence of the great abundance of these fish, 

 experiments are now making in the neighbourhood of 

 Newhaven to establish a manufactory of oil and portable 

 manure from them, which may prove more profitable 

 than selling them for direct application to the land. The 

 fish are inclosed in a proper steaming-apparatus, are so 

 far cooked that the oil separates and can be drawn off, 

 as in the lard-factories of Cincinnati or the tallow-extrac 

 tion in South America and Australia. The substance of 

 the fish is then artificially dried and pressed into cakes. 

 If this operation can be conducted economically, the 

 manure produced must be very valuable, and will soon 

 create for itself a ready market. 



Notwithstanding the progressive state of agriculture 



* DE KAY, Zoology of New York, Part iv. p. 260. 



