St. Landry democrat., 1879-06-07
MACK EREL.
How Caught and Vghere:.-..An Incrcasfns



flip in America with his insatiate friend
the conservative Goldfish, to the great
delight of the Pilgrims and Puritans
in their exceeding time of need; kind
service their sons and daughters are not
soon inclined to forget. Ofall the fnny
tribes that roam or sport in the ocean
the lnackerel is the most beautiful, eat>
able and valuable. While fresh it is
found upon the table of the rich and
poor many months in the year Afford
ing always a healthy and desirable,
sometimes delicious, and often for
months an exceedingly cheap kind OF
food. Fresh mackerel have been sold in
London markets as high as seven shil.
lings each, and as low as sixty for one
shilling.
There has been inspected in Massachu-
setts alone, during the ten years pre-
ceding and including 1874, two million
three hundred and sixteen thousand and
eighty>three barrels, an average of two
hundred and thirty-one thousand bar
rels annually. At an average price of
twelve dollars and q half per barrel,
which must be conceded low estimate
for these years, we have an annual pro-
duct of about three millions from the
salt mackerel department of Massachu-
setts. In 1850 Professor Storer esti-
mated that about eight thousand bar
rels of fresh mackerel were sold in the
Boston market. Since 1850, ewing to
increased facilities for transportation
and the general use of ice. this branch
has been augmented in Boston at least
ten fold. Immense quantities are car-
ried direct to the New York market
during the spring and early summer,
counting which, and other places, it
would seem q safe calculation that at
least half as many mackerel are now
sold fresh as are salt packed. Estimat-
ing their value the same as the salted
fish, and allowing only half a million
for all the mackerel caught in Maine
and the other states, we have five mil
lion dollars annual income to the in
dustry of the state, on an outlay of
thirteen millions. This five million is
purely productive; every dollar comes
from the ocean. Not even farming is so
pre'eminently and entirely productive
industry. The fisherman plows an un-
taxed furrow, that needs no replenishing
year by year.
1t is almost incredible how fast mack
erel may be caught by trsined crew.
The mackerel sometimes 60 up SO fast
that the whole side of the vessel shines
like silver. In July, 1912, q crew of
eleven men and boys "struck school"
of biting mackerel on Georges bank. In
twenty-five minutes they caught thirty
strike. barrels "a barrel 80 full that the
mackerel jump out). Ten hours such
fishing would give six hundred strike
barrels, or about three hundred barrels,
which, at the present price of that quail
ity, would stock seven thousand five
hundred dollars. Among leading mack
erel fishermen, Skipper Richard Rich, of
Truro, was celebrity in his day. For
many years he was "high line" in the
country. On account of sailing many
years in the schooner Osceola, he became
quite widely known as "Osceola Dick"
some thought that msckerel knew him
as well and came to his hook. One
hundred and fifty wash-barrels was not
great deck for Osceola Dick. He has
taken one hundred and ninety wash
barrels in single day, all saved in good
order, and without feeling very fshy.
In pursuit Of food, mackerel roam the
ocean as the beast roams the forests; but
they move north or south by laws as
fixed as the rule of the seasons. Thoreau
in his "Cape Cod," tells of We]laeet
farmer who kept his schooner anchored
in sight of his house, and while his corn
and potatoes were growing, and at other
odd times, with his boys, he ran down to
Virginia and other points along the
coast. Thoreau calls the schooner
which this ocean farmer
irove amain. As the farmer calls his
lock by scattering corn, and thus leads
hem to fresh pastures and fields anew,
10 these sea-farmers call their focks into
he bays and on the banks of the coast,
md feed with food convenient for them.
N other words, the thousand or fifteen
hundred sail of fishermen that used to
ringe our shores, and by a systematic
practice scatter hundred thousand bar
els annually of fat, fresh~ground food |
0 the mackerel, called "throwing bait"
ad educated the fish to visit, feed and |
atten in handy pastures.
As we have taken so successfully to |
ating oatmeal, may we not take another
,sson of the hardy Scotch, and learn to
at more fish ? Surely if eating oat.
ZEAL and herring have given them Drawn
nd brain, they may be proud of both.
'ryden did not mean the Gaels when he
lid, Brawn without brains is theirs"
4 1860 there were employed in the Irish
erring fisheries $1,000 men and boys,
i'd more than fourteen thousand vessels
Id beats. The Dutch and Scandina~