22 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



iug. Other men with gaffs seize them and drag them over the slippery floor to the end of the 

 building. Here a stout spruce or pine box is waiting, standing on platform scales. One by one 

 the fish are lifted into the box, and a shovelful of ice is poured into the abdominal cavity. The 

 box is filled, its weight noted and marked in large figures in one corner, and then it is transferred 

 to wooden rollers and handed over to the carpenter, who nails the cover on, using a peculiar instru- 

 ment, very appropriately called a "devil's claw," if we accept the idea that the devil has an 

 unyielding clutch. 



If, as frequently happens, the fish are taken from the vessel, weighed, and beheaded faster 

 than they can be boxed, they are dragged aside and thrown in heaps according to the several 

 grades. It is not an uncommon thing to see 30,000 to 40,000 pounds of halibut piled up on the 

 floor of a large packing establishment, and in some instances a much larger quantity is heaped 

 together. 



When taking out halibut the average rate of progress is from 7,000 to 10,000 pounds an hour; 

 the speed depends somewhat on the height of the tide. " The best time we ever made," says Mr. 

 John F. Bickford, foreman of the Atlantic Halibut Company, " was in the summer of 1878 when 

 we took a trip of 103,000 pounds of halibut out of the schooner William Thompson in 9 hours and 

 15 minutes, and had an hour's nooning out of the time. The actual time at work was a little more 

 than 8 hours." These fish were bought " right through," arid, being in good order, needed no culling, 

 and consequently could be handled very rapidly. 



A full working gang in the building is eleven men, all told These are divided as follows, 

 namely : A weigher (who is usually the foreman), the culler and assistant at the scale, the header, 

 a man to haul the fish away, three men boxing and weighing the fish, two men nailing the boxes 

 and wheeling them away, and one man grinding ice. One of the " boxers" assists the " ice-grinder" 

 in dragging away the baskets of ice, &c. With a gang like this at work boxing, the fish can be 

 put up ready for shipment nearly as fast as they are usually taken out of a vessel. The boxes 

 hold an average of 425 pounds of halibut. 



Mr. B. W. Griffin, culler at the New England Halibut Company's establishment, and Mr. 

 Thomas Tarr, foreman of the same, gave the following information : 



"We take out anywhere from 8,000 to 10,000 pounds of halibut an hour, under ordinary 

 circumstances; generally more if the chance is favorable. The best we ever did was in 1878, when 

 we took a trip of 42,000 pounds out of the George P. Whitman in an hour and three-quarters. 

 With a full gang at boxing, which includes six men three boxers, two nailers, and one ice-grinder 

 we can box, ready for shipment, 40,000 pounds of halibut in four hours, but in some instances we 

 do even better than this. Some years ago, the schooner Win. T. Merchant came in with a trip of 

 halibut that had been sold to arrive, at a high price, and we were anxious to get the fish on the 

 market. She hauled alongside of the wharf at 5 o'clock p. in., and at 9 p. m. we had her trip of 

 50,000 pounds boxed and all on the steamboat wharf, ready for shipment." 



It seems appropriate in this place to allude to the system of ' ; culling fish " which is in practice 

 among the merchants of Gloucester who buy fresh halibut from the fishermen. They have estab- 

 lished three grades of halibut, known as " white," " gray," and " sour"; the white halibut are those 

 which have their under sides immaculate, the gray halibut are those whose under sides are more or 

 less tinged with gray or drab, while the sour halibut are those which are slightly tainted in the 

 vicinity of the abdominal cavity. The largest halibut are almost invariably gray. The price allowed 

 to the fishermen for gray halibut is considerably less than that for " white," frequently not more than 

 one-half. The price of sour halibut, again, is considerably less than that of gray. For instance, 

 when white halibut sell for 5 cents per pound, gray will sell for from 3 to 3 cents per pound, 



