The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-10
MAcKEREL FROM AFRICA.
The First Consignment of a New Amer
ican Industry.
From the Baltimore sun.

From the Baltimore sun.
The Baltimore fish commission men are
greatly interested in six barrels Of mackerel
which viii arrive tomorrow morHing on
the Merchants and Miners Line steamship
from Boston. The fish are consigned to C.
F. Eareckson & Co., 221 South street, and
are part of the first shipment Of mackerel
from Africa to America, AMI tell a story of
American enterprise. For some time past the
quantity of American mackerel has been on
the decrease, until now there are not enough
of the fish caught to supply the demand,
and Ireland and Norway have had to be
drawn on to make up the deficiency The
annual catch has fallen from 100000 bar
rels in 1894 to about 2, 900 barrels in 1889.
and prices have advanced from 50 25 to 50
per barrel to S1S to S26 per barrel. For
more than two years Ireland and Norway
have been depended upon for tire best grades
of mackerel, Norway sending about ZOO
barrels a year to 5000 barrels from ireland.
While the same in appearance as the Amer
lean fish, they are larger and of better
quality, those coming from Norway being
the best.
The cause of the fish leaving American
shores has been problem which the scien-
lists have bothered their brains over in vain
as far as any practical results are con-
cerned, and as there are over IS, 900, 900 in-
vested in the fishing industry of the New
England states the question was a serious
one. The ifs ermen believe that seining
was in no small way accountable for it.
Prior TO 1850 it was the custom to bait the
fish and then to catch them with hook and
line. This, however, was too slow for the
Yankee hustler" and immense drag-nets
were used, which would inclose whole
schools and haul them in by the hundreds
Of thousands. This, IL is thought, has had
the effect of soaring them away, and it is
believed that those now caught off Ireland
and Norway are the same that freouented
American shore, and those caught off the
coast Of Africa are the ''bull-eyes" which
were caught off Cape Cod in great numbers
a out two years ago
Last Summer q few of the old fishermen
studied the ma ter out, and decided that
mackerel ought to be found somewhere in
the neighborhood Of the Cape of Good Hope
Accordingly the schooner Alice, of Pro-
vincetown, Mass, was fitted out in Septem-
Der for a six months cruise to the coast of
Africa on search for mackerel, and a few
days ago arrived at her home with thirty
three casks, holding about three barrels
each OF No. l mackeFel, which had been
caught off the Cape of Good Hope by New
England fishermen, and cured and packed
on New England fishing boat. They were
opened for inspection in Provincetown, and
were examined by a large crowd of the
local fishermen, who pronounced them fully
equal to if not better than their own fish.
In speaking of the fish the Gloucester
(Mass) Times said: "In quality they are
about thirteen to fifteen inches long, and
the flesh is firm and white. The " way
they differ from American mackerel is in the
stripes, which come little lower down on
the sides Of the fish, something like the
bull-eye mackerel caught off this coast sew
arro Nov ~,
macEerel caught on the American coast in
the early spring. One thousand dollars
was offered for the lot unopened in Boston
and refused. Everything goes to show that
scientific men and shoal-Water sailors who
have hardly been out of sight of land were
sadly mistaken In their prediction that
Capt. ST Chase in the schooner Alice was
going on a wild-goose chase. To Province
town, and to Capt. Chase in particular, is
due the honor of opening up an entirely
new mackerel fishing grounds over 5000
miles from home"