THE SOUTHERN SPRING MACKEREL FISHERY. 
219 
exhibiting the. catch of these lisli for the last lifty years; and it sliows that there lias grown up quite 
a regular and systematic increase in quantity of catch. 
Mr. Boutelle. I suggest that if the gentleman from New York will now collect and put along- 
side of that statistics showing the increase in the amount of heef consumed by the people of the 
United States, year by year, during the last seventy-five years, it will he equally interesting and 
equallj' pertinent. 
Mr. Reed, of Maine. In other words, it would not show that the mackerel catch has not dimin- 
ished, as alleged. 
Mr. Lohe. Let me ask my friend from Maine what evidence he has to-day that the supply of 
mackerel in the ocean has been diminished at all by the use of these nets— I mean the supply for all 
practical purposes? 
Mr. Boutelle. We have the evidence of men engaged in the pursuit of those fish as to the rela- 
tive diflicnlty of obtaining a certain quantity. That is the only evidence that can he had. 
Mr. Lore. Certainly no evidence of that kind is before the House. 
Mr. Boutelle. If the fi.shermen were unable to catch any mackerel at all on the coast, it would 
not prove there were not mackerel somewhere in the sea, but it would he pretty good evidence to that 
ett'ect. The difficulty of obtaining the fish is certainly competent evidence to show their increasing 
scarcity. 
Mr. Lore. But, measured by that which is before our eyes, it is fair to assume that the supply is 
still there, for it. not only meets all the demand, but the quantity is so abundant that to-day mackerel 
are a drug on the market. 
Mr. Reed, of Maine. How about the quality? 
Mr. Lore. I will come to the tiuestion of the quality presently. I have been speaking of the 
quantity; and on that point 1 think I have said all I care to say. I think I have shown that the 
quantity is not diminished. 
Now as to the (juality of the food. I am free to say — and I have no other wish than that all the facts 
in this case should appear — that not merely from the Ist of March till the Ist of .Inue, hut from the 
1st of March till the Ist of August, embracing at least the eutire month of .Line and part of July, 
even while these fish on the shores of Maine and Massachusetts are spawning, the quality is not so 
good as later in the season, after they become fat; still they are wholesome and palatable food. 
I have iu my hand a very interesting work upon the fisheries of Massachusetts published in 1833, 
the author Ijeing Dr. .lerome B. C. Smith. In this work the habits of these fish are largely discussed. 
It has always lieen a mystery where they came from. Indeed, we might say iu biblical language that 
they are like the wind which “hloweth wbeie it listeth; thou canst not tell whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth.” We know that these fish appear in the northern waters about March and disappear 
about November. From whence they come to our shores in March, and where they go when they leave 
the New England coast in November each ye.ir, is a profound mystery and a curious study for our 
scientists. Some say they hibernate iu the mud on cold northern shores; others, that they spend the 
winter under the icebergs in Arctic, regions, but in this hook one writer states that in the month of 
November he. found immense schools of these mackerel taking iheir way back apparently to the 
southern climes. And this writer seems to have satisfied himself and other.s that these fisli passing 
between the Gulf Stream and the coast go to the deep water south to re(mr8ue iu another season their 
migrations northward. 
It is urged that the fish caught between the 1st of March and the 1st of August are inferior in 
quality. I concede that they are not so good as those caught after the spawning season is over; but 
they are iierfectly palatable, wholesome food, though a little poor, that is all. The authorities which 
have been produced do not show that fish caught during the spawning season are unwholesome food. 
The very authority cited by the gentleman from Maine, Mr. Collins — w'ho, by the way, was born in 
Maine — was appointed from Massachusetts; was a mackerel fisherman himself for twenty-five years, 
and who frankly says he feels an interest iu the wdiole matter, I might say a strong bias iu favor of 
the old calling, and is the only one of th.e scientists who gives countenance to the theory of the 
hill. What does he say about these mackerel caught during the spawning season? He does not say 
that they are unpalatable or unwholesome, but sim[)ly that they are of inferior quality. But the 
point of the matter ai^pears a little later. It conclusively appears that when these fish come into the 
New York market, though of comparatively poor quality, men living all along the coast buy them 
with avidity and eat them with gusto. The catching of the fish and the packing of the fish then 
caught interferes to a great extent with the sale of fish caught and packed on the coast of Maine and 
