62 FISH-CULTURAL ASSOCIATION. 
the prices obtained; and as some indication of the range of price, 
I may say that during the year 1883, cod sold as low as one dol- 
lar per hundred weight. In some years there has been a percep- 
tible decrease in the catch, but it has been followed by such 
enormous catches that the markets have been glutted. The sta- 
tistics of the Boston Fish Bureau show the catch of the New 
England fleet to be: for 1881, 775,027 quintals; for 1882, 898,904 
quintals; for 1883, 1,061,698 quintals, showing an absolute in- 
crease in two years of nearly 300,000 quintals. Surely these 
figures need not occasion any alarm or fear that codfish cakes 
will be beyond the reach of the most impecunious fish-culturist- 
Next, and hardly second in importance, is the bluefish. It is 
a matter of historical record that these fish disappeared entirely 
from our coast in the year 1764, and did not make their appear- 
ance again for several years, and then they were taken in vast 
numbers. Suppose such a disappearance should take place this 
summer. How quickly the fishermen would appeal to the legis- 
latures to abolish the menhaden steamers, and the angler would 
cry out for the destruction of the pound and trap nets. Each 
would probably claim that the scarcity was owing to these instru- 
mentalities. This one instance of the bluefish in 1764, should 
lead us to be careful and conservative in regard to. legislation, 
and to carefully consider whether there are not some great natu- 
ral laws that determine the appearance and disappearance of fish 
on our coast, rather than attribute it to the comparatively puny 
efforts of man to affect the supply. 
But let us turn to the question as to their present apparent 
scarcity or plentifulness. During the year 1882, bluefish were 
scarcer than they had been for some years, and the wholesale 
price did not go below five cents. This scarcity was particularly 
noticeable on the New Jersey coast. But the season of 1883 
was unusually productive, and bluefish sold as low as two and 
a half cents per pound, and, had it not been for the large quan- 
tities that were taken out of the market and stored in refrigera- 
tors for winter use, the price would have declined to one cent 
per pound. 
It would seem to bea fair inference that the bluefish needs 
no protection at present. 
