Report of the commissioner for 1878 : part VI.

  • United States Fish Commission.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the commissioner for 1878 : part VI. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    157/1174 (page 55)
    (Trachynotus). Tlie prices of fresh fish in a market as large as this one, of course, vary considerably. The following are the average prices: Codfish, 5 to G cents; flounders, 8 cents; common mackerel (Scomber scombrus), 8 to 10 cents; Spanish mackerel (Cybhnn maculatum and regale, Scomber maculatus and regalis), which is esteemed as highly as salmon, 25 to 30 cents per pound. The value of all the fish annually sold in Ful- ton Market is about $2,000,000. Of these, Mr. Blackford sells about one- tenth, or $200,000 worth. In Boston the fish-trade is carried on in a little different manner from New York. Besides a large common market, where all kinds of fresh, salt, and smoked fish are sold, there are special markets for fresh fish, where the fish are received from the fishing-schooners and placed on ice, and where the vessels that are going out are furnished with bait and ice. It must be mentioned here that all the fishing-schooners which are sent out from Boston and supply the Boston markets with fish are always furnished with a considerable quantity of ice for keeping the fish fresh. These vessels usually make one trip every two weeks, and gen- erally return to Boston with a full cargo of fish. Their fishing imple- ments consist of lines, with which they chiefly catch codfish and floun- ders, but also small swordfish, which are quite common on the coast be- tween Cape Cod and Cape Ann, where the Boston fishermen have their station. The prices of fish in Boston are generally a little lower than in New York. In Gloucester, the most important fishing-station in America, which possesses more than 500 well-furnished and beautiful fishing-schooners, there is no fish market like in New York and Boston, but a large number of very considerable fisli-establishments, which supply a great portion of the United States and Canada with fresh fish, and more especially with salt herring, mackerel, dried codfish, and smoked halibut. As the fish-trade of Gloucester is very extensive, a more detailed description will not be out of place. Gloucester, situated on Cape Ann, in the State of Massachusetts, a few miles from Boston, was founded by Englishmen about two hundred years ago, and, after many ups and downs, it has, from an inconsider- able fishing-village, by energy and pluck, risen to be an important city, with a population of about 17,000, who live almost exclusively by the fisheries, which, as I mentioned before, employ about 500 schooners with an aggregate tonnage of 30,000, besides a large number of boats engaged in coast-fishing. The result of these fisheries for a single year (1875) are, according to a volume published in 187G entitled “The Fisheries of Gloucester,” as follows: Value. Bank (Newfoundland) cod 177,473 quintals $998, G2S George’s cod 185, 758 quintals 1, 021,669 George’s halibut 2, 4G2, 3G4 pounds 172,3C5 Bank halibut 7, 248, 423 pounds 507,389