152 GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



home 3,200 barrels of roe, principally cod and pollock, valued at about $11,000. This was salted 

 in barrels, and shipped to New York for exportation to France. 



The quantity of spawn saved by the fishermen is limited only by the demand. Thousands of 

 barrels of cod, haddock, halibut, pollock, and herring spawn might be brought to market if a 

 sufficient price could be received for it. A great part of the spawn is brought to port by the 

 George's-men in the spring of the year. It is salted in barrels on board the vessels, and upon being 

 landed is resalted in butts or hogsheads, then taken out, drained, and packed in ordinary fish 

 barrels. The fishermen received, during 1879, from $1.50 to $2 per barrel for spawn, without the 

 barrel. The dealers sold it to the exporters for $3.75 to $4 per barrel, including the barrel. 



THE MACKEREL FISHERY. The mackerel fishery is perhaps the most important of any single 

 fishery carried on at Gloucester. It employs from eighty to one hundred and fifty sail of vessels, 

 and the annual catch is from 100,000 to 200,000 barrels. In 1879 the fleet numbered eighty-five 

 sail that landed at Gloucester and other ports about 120,000 barrels of mackerel, including some 

 25,000 barrels of fresh fish sold at New York and Boston. It was formerly a hook-and line fishery, 

 but now the entire Gloucester fleet is fitted with purse-seines. The fishing grounds are from the 

 capes of Virginia to the Bay of Fundy. A few years ago a large part of the fleet fished in the Bay 

 of Saint Lawrence, but that ground has been abandoned and the fishery carried on only off the 

 American coast. In the months of March and April the Southern fleet leave home, and, fishing 

 off the coasts of New Jersey and Delaware, market their catch fresh in New York. As the fish 

 move northward and eastward the fleet follow them and continue their capture as long as they can 

 be found. In the latter part of June the Southern fleet becomes a Northern fleet, fishing in the Gulf 

 of Maine, and is largely increased in numbers. By the last of July the fish have become much 

 fatter and more valuable than earlier in the season. From this time until the close of the fishery 

 in November the catch is mostly salted in barrels. 



The improved methods of capture now in use enable an equal number of men to take many 

 times more mackerel in a given period lhan were secured tinder the old methods. A single 

 Gloucester vessel has been known to take over 1,000,000 pounds of fresh mackerel in a season. In 

 1880 the schooner Edward E. Webster, Capt. Solomon Jacobs, captured and lauded 1,300 barrels 

 of fresh mackerel and 2,600 barrels of pickled, which were sold for $ 1 9,745. Three or four hundred 

 barrels of these fish are sometimes taken and salted in as many days by a single vessel. So dili- 

 gently do the crews labor that when a big catch has been made they will often keep at work for 

 forty consecutive hours without sleep. 



Mackerel as they are landed in barrels from the vessels are called sea packed, and before they 

 can be sent out of the State must be culled into grades, and inspected and branded under the 

 laws of the State. In Gloucester a portion of the catch is sold out of pickle, or by the 200 pounds 

 in fishermen's order. When thus sold the trip can be settled at once and the crew receive their 

 share of the stock. The more general method of settling with the men has been to have the fish 

 packed and inspected and charge each man a certain amount, from $1.50 to ?2 per barrel, for the 

 expense of packing, including cost of barrels, salt, and labor. Owners of vessels supply provisions, 

 salt, gear, and barrels for the trip, but the crew are finally obliged to bear half the cost of the* 

 barrels and the salt for packing. 



Mackerel have always been more or less abundant in Massachusetts Bay. Governor Win- 

 throp saw quantities of them off Cape Ann in 1030. The colonies made regulations concerning the 

 capture of these fish, but the industry was confined principally to towns on the south side of the 

 bay, and little was done at Gloucester in this fishery until after this year 1800. Small fishing boats 

 occasionally took a few fresh mackerel to Boston for a market, and some were salted, though the 



