1772 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



species of strayed chicken or domestic duck and pigeon which the owner 

 bad the right to follow on his neighbor's farm. At that time they had 

 no interest at all in depreciating our fish, for Canadian mackerel were 

 then quoted at the highest rates on the markets of Gloucester and Bos- 

 ton; this was avowedly the case. They had even prepared statistics 

 for the Centennial, in which these fish were at the highest price quoted 

 on these markets, because it was only the prodigal son which was thus 

 offered. These fish were considered then their property, and why should 

 they endeavor to depreciate the value of their property ! Some of the 

 British Joint High Commisssioners, under this strong assertion of right, 

 felt a deep commiseration for the proprietor of the poultry in being re- 

 stricted to certain grounds in the execution of a search-warrant for the 

 recovery of his property; and, in order to repair the cruelties of the 

 Convention of 1818, they were like a facetious American writer pre- 

 pared to sacrifice all their wives' relatives to do something at our ex- 

 pense for the United States as an atonement for that long injustice. 



While these notions were prevalent, our American friends had no in- 

 terest in depreciating a property which constructively was their own. 

 In a long article on the fisheries, published in the New York World of the 

 15th April, 1871, not quite a month before the signing of the Washing- 

 ton Treaty, evidently written by a well-informed person, we read the 

 following: 



About the middle of April, or the 1st of May, the mackerel fleet makes the first trip of the 

 season to ofl Newport, Rock Island, Cape Henlopen, and Cape May ; arid if they have good 

 luck, may get as much as '200 barrels to each vessel. Those are all, however, poor fish, 

 ouly ranking as No. 2, and sometimes not even that. A little later in the season, say in 

 June, and far northward, "No. 2" fish are caught, but it is not until the middle and latter 

 part of August, that up in the Bay of Chaleur, off Prince Edward Island, and off the Mag- 

 dalen Islands, in Canadian waters, the finest and fattest fish, both Nos. 1 and 2, are caught. 

 From the time they are first struck in the Bay of Chaleur, the mackerel move steadily south 

 ward until they leave Canadian waters and are off Maine and Massachusetts, the fisher- 

 men, both American and Canadian, following them. 



As already said, this idea of a migrating mackerel prevailed until 

 Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, and other 

 specialists, destroyed it by asserting that the mackerel was a steady 

 and nou migrating squatter; that what was found on the American 

 coasts was born there, and remained there, in a pretty limited circle of 

 motion induced by necessity of finding food; that what was caught in 

 Canadian waters was also born and had there its habitat in similar 

 conditions of circumnavigation for food, or to escape from predacious 

 fish. From the moment our friends discovered that the fish which were 

 caught in the bay were Canadian fish, these lost with them all prestige. 

 From that moment, Canadian markets lost all consideration and credit 

 in the minds of many. American witnesses, heard in the case, called 

 pur mackerel trash, others invented a contemptuous word to describe 



rank inferiority, and called it eel-grass mackerel, something hardly 

 flood tor manure, almost unfit for quotation on the market of the United 

 States. 



We do not claim such marked superiority for Canadian mackerel as was 



ributed to them when supposed to be^of American growth; but the 



evidence fairly weighed shows that, while both shores have good, in- 



ifferent, and inferior mackerel at times, as a whole, the gulf mackerel 

 have commanded a higher price on the American market than Ameri- 

 can-caught mackerel ; ami in a run of years the quantity caught in the 

 f was, as well as quality, superior to American-shore mackerel. 

 In order to see whether there is any difference between Canadian and 

 American mackerel, I appeal to the statement produced here by Mr. 



