AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1685 



Q. What does that show f A. The total marketing of salted fish in Chicago up to 

 the middle of October amounted to 100,000 half-barrels, with about 20,000 balf-barreb 

 expected for the rest of the season, or equal to iO,000 barrels of those fish for Chicago 

 alone for the present year. The corresponding supply of barrels of fish in 1872 were 

 12,600 in Chicago, so that the Chicago trade has increased from 12,600 in 1872 to 60,000 

 in 1877, or almost five fold 4-ro- The total catch of fish in the lakes in 1872 was 

 112,250,000 pounds. If the total catch has increased in the same ratio as that market 

 has done at Chicago, it will give 156,000,000 pounds of fish taken ou the American side 

 of the lakes for the present year. 



Then there are other fresh fish that are taking the place of the salt 

 mackerel. The question is not between British mackerel aud American 

 mackerel, but it is between mackerel and everything else that can be 

 (eaten; because, if mackerel rise in market price, and in tbe cost of 

 catching, people will betake themselves to other articles of food. There 

 is no necessity for their eating mackerel. The mackerel lives in the market 

 only upon the terms that it can be cheaply furnished. This tribunal 

 will recollect that interesting witness, Mr. Ashby, from Noank, Conn. ; 

 lio\v enthusiastic he was over the large halibut that he caught; how his 

 eyes gleamed, and his countenance lightened, when he told your honors 

 the weight of that halibut, the sensation produced in Fulton market 

 when he brought him there, aud the very homely, but really lucid way 

 in which he described the superior manner by which they were able to 

 preserve those fish in ice, and the way they were brought into market; 

 and how the whole horizon was dotted with vessels fishing for halibut, 

 aud other fish there, with which to supply the great aud increasing 

 demand in the New York market. There is also the testimony of 

 Professor Baird, who speaks of various kinds of fish. It is not worth 

 while to enumerate them all, but he speaks especially of a fish known 

 as "mullet," on the Southern coast. So long as slavery existed, it is 

 undoubtedly true that there was very little enterprise in this direction. 

 It suffered like every thiug else, but cotton, rice and sugar, staples 

 which could be cultivated easily by slave labor. Almost every other 

 form of agriculture, almost all kinds of maritime labor, ceased. The 

 truth was, the slaves could not be trusted in boats. The boats would 

 be likely to head off from South Carolina or Virginia, and not be seen 

 a-ain. The vessels that went to the ports of the slave States were 

 ^irthern vessels, owned aud manned by Northern people. Southern 

 people could not carry on commerce with their slaves, nor fishing with 

 their slaves. That system being now abolished, the fisheries of the 

 Southern States are to be developed. The negro will fish for himself. 

 He will have no motive for running away from his own profits. The 

 result has been that this mullet has come into very considerable import- 

 ance. Professor Baird has his statistics concerning it, and he has 

 certainly a very strong opinion that that fish is in danger of excluding 

 silted mackerel from the Southern markets (indeed it is almost excluded 

 now), aud that it will work its way up to the Northern markets. Some 

 of the Southern people think very highly of it, as the best kind of fish, 

 think it has not its superior in the ocean; but, supposing that to be local 

 iteration and patriotic enthusiasm, yet certainly it is a useful aud 

 valuable fish, and the demand for it is rapidly increasing. Professor 

 l>aird says, on page 460, that one million barrels of mullet could be 

 turnished annually from the south shore off Chesapeake Bay to the 

 south-end of Florida, if they were called for. 



Q. How far has the mullet come into the market now T A. The mullet does not come 



mto the Northern market at all, but in the North Carolina, South Carolina, an 1 Oaor- 



iia, it fills the markets at the present time, excluding other kinds of imported fish. 



in former years there was a great demand for herring and mackerel, bat the mullet is 



applying the markets, because they are sold fresher and supplied at a much lower 



