458 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
full, wlieii the barrel is coopered aud set aside and sold to the trade. In some cases, 
instead of making new brine, the pickle resulting from the first salting is boiled in 
large kettles, strained, cooled, and poured over the fish, and dry salt is frequently 
sprinkled over each layer of fish as they are placed in the barrel. It requires half a 
bushel of salt to strike and pickle 100 pounds of mullet. The decrease in weight by 
dressing, when only the viscera and gills are removed, approximates 15 per cent, and 
the decrease in weight by curing is about 10 per cent. 
The fishermen sell the partly salted mullet to the dealers at prices ranging from 
$1.50 to $3.50 iier 100 pounds, and after pickling them the dealers usually sell them 
for from $2.50 to $4.50 iier barrel of 100 pounds, the quality and full weight of the fish 
being guaranteed by the dealer who puts them up. According to the inspection laws 
of North Carolina, mullet are divided into three grades — those taken in gill nets of 
2-inch mesh being called 2-iuch mullet and branded as “number one”; IJ-iuch mullet, 
“number two”; 1-iuch aud under, “number three”; aud fish of different lengths and 
kinds are designated “mixed.” 
In North Carolina it is required, by an enactment of 1870, that barrels used in 
liackiug mullet shall have staves 25 inches in length and heads 13 inches in diameter. 
They are made generally of Maine white pine, and cost ifom 45 to GO cents each. 
Packages made from the long-leaf pine grown in the Southern States should never be 
used, since the fish are liable to be flavored with the turpentine. Mullet are also 
placed ill ipiarter barrels containing 50 pounds, in full barrels of 200 pounds capacity, 
and in kits of 10 and 15 pounds each. 
If the fish are kept on hand long they are examined from time to time by remov- 
ing the barrel heads, and if the pickle has leaked out more is added, for the fish must 
be kept under pickle to prevent their rusting and spoiling. They are also liable to 
rust if kept in the first salting longer than one week. Pickled mnllet are at their 
best after they have been pickled from one to six weeks; after that they begin to 
deteriorate in quality, and after six months they become so strong that they are not 
very palatable aud few are then sold. 
The full value of pickled mullet is scarcely appreciated ou our South Atlantic aud 
Gulf of Mexico coasts, aud there are stretches hundreds of miles in extent where none 
whatever are prepared, notwithstanding the fact that the fish are abundant aud 
the industry would yield remunerative employment to the fishermen of the locality. 
Even where mullet are prepared many of the fishermen are unfamiliar with the best 
methods of cure, and some mullet are put up in so crude a manner as to injure the 
trade by prejudicing the public against eating these fish. Pickled mullet properly 
cured are among the choicest of our Southern fishery products, aud if careful attention 
be given to their iireparation, with suitable restrictions against marketing inferior 
products, a large trade in them could be establislied, aud, because of their great abun- 
dance, without in any way conflicting with the supply for the fresh-lish markets. 
BRINE-SALTED SHAD. 
During the early part of the present century pickled shad was an important 
fishery product, large quantities being salted in barrels, either for local use during 
the winter or for shipment to distant markets. It was a staple winter food for the 
people living fiear the shad streams, most of the fanulies who could afford it laying 
in from 1 to 5 or G barrels. People living 50 miles or more inland came to the streams 
