FORTY-SEVENTH CONGRESS, 1881-1883. 875 



honors, including the epergne, the magnificent gift of Kaiser Wilhelm, 

 which was presented to our commissioner. It was a fit token that he 

 had done more for the fishing interests of his country than an}- other 

 man. Since the Berlin exhibition, when the attention of foreign 

 countries had been called to the cheapness and excellence of the vari- 

 ous products" of the fisheries, new markets have been found for dried, 

 salted, and prepared fish of different kinds, and also for the apparatus 

 used by the fishermen. The exports have increased correspondingly 

 in value and in kind. Let the report of the Committee on Foreign 

 Affairs speak: 



One of the immediate results of the participation by this Government in the exhi- 

 bition at Berlin, in 1880, was the establishment of agencies for the sale of American 

 fish products in nearly every country in Europe. As another result, American 

 boneless codfish has been adopted as a standard article of food by some seventeen or 

 more of the regiments of the German army, and its introduction into the commissary 

 department of the navies of Germany and Russia is seriously contemplated. 



The foreign trade in this commodity has but just begun, and its possibilities for 

 the future are almost without limit. The Commissioner states that the value of the 

 products of the fisheries of the United States in the census year 1880 was about 

 $45,000,000. This was the estimated price paid to the producer, but the value of the 

 same products at wholesale rates would not be less than $90,000,000. 



The export trade, owing to a strong home demand, in the year 1880 amounted to 

 only $5,744,580. Professor Baird states that under the processes now being success- 

 fully employed, the resources of the waters of the United States available for this 

 purpose may be made to produce a quantity of useful products at least ten times as 

 great as they now produce, which would amount to the enormous sum of $900,000,000 

 per annum. He also estimates that at the rate at which oysters are now being con- 

 sumed ten years will exhaust the natural supply in this country, but states that 

 under artificial methods now employed the supply will soon be restored. In view 

 of the growing scarcity and high prices for meat food these things become of vital 

 importance. The exports of oysters from the United States to England have risen 

 in value from $33,661 in 1875 to $403,629 in 1881. 



This country excels all others in the preparation of the cheapest and best quali- 

 ties of dried cod and pollock. These are prepared with skin and bones removed, and 

 packed in neat boxes for transportation. It has also an almost unexampled pro- 

 duction of superior grades of smoked herring, sturgeon, halibut, and mullet, all of 

 which, if placed upon foreign markets, would meet an immense sale. The display 

 of these and similar articles in the exhibition would tend directly to their introduc- 

 tion into European markets. 



Certainly, then, if these results have followed the Berlin exhibition 

 it is of great commercial interest to expand our markets, which are 

 now only 10 per cent of what they really ought to be, could, and will 

 be if Professor Baird is assisted in his endeavors, for, as he truthfully 

 says in his report: 



Many countries of Europe have already reached that period when they look to 

 foreign nations for their supply of animal food. America furnishes a great part; the 

 less populated regions of Europe the remainder. The increase in the price of what 

 is called "butchers' meat," though gradual, is inevitable, and every year a larger 

 and larger percentage of the population will be unable to secure it. In this . 

 gency we must look to the water for the means of supply. 



