Still every

though this practice is less common than it formerly was. factory buys fish in greater or less quantity, and the answers to question 47 of the circular are important in exhibiting the variations in abundance at different points on the coast. Perhaps it may not be amiss

to quote fully from the letters, it being quite impossible to tabulate the facts.

Mr. William H. Sargent, of Castine, Me., says: "For four years past the average price has been 65 cents per round barrel.*

Jason Luce & Co., of Menemsha Bight, estimate that menhaden average from 225 to 240 in a barrel.f

In the report of the committee on statistics from the United States Association for the meeting of 1875, the estimate was put at three barrels to the thousand fish, or 333 fish to the barrel.

Captain Tuthill estimates 22 cubic inches to each fish, Captain Sisson 21, making three and one-half barrels to the thousand. In Long Island Sound the fish are sold by the thousand; farther east, always by the barrel.

Mr. Condon, of Belfast, estimates the price for 1873 at 60 cents; Mr. G. B. Kenniston, of Booth Bay, at 75 cents, stating that in previous years the price has ranged from 50 cents to $1.25. Mr. B. F. Brightman says that in 1872 and 1873 the average has been 65 cents, but that when oil was high they have brought $1. Mr. J. Washburn, of Portland, estimates the price at $1 for 1873; during the war, much higher. Mr. Eben B. Phillips estimates the price at from 60 to 70 cents in 1873, 56 in 1874, and about 60 in previous years. Fall fish, for trying, bring 40 to 50 cents in Wellfleet, Mass., according to Mr. Dill. At Nantucket, according to Mr. Reuben C. Kenny, the fish are worth from 50 to 75 cents as taken from the nets; only about half are used in the manufacture of oil.

Mr. Church gives the average price on Narragansett Bay at 40 cents, and to this correspond very nearly the estimates of the southern shore of Cape Cod and the Vineyard Sound, which find market for their menhaden at the Narragansett factories.

Captain Crandall, of Watch Hill, R. I., thinks $2 to the thousand a fair estimate for 1873 and 1874. Captain Beebe, of Niantic, Conn., agrees with this, giving $2.50 for previous years. Mr. R. E. Ingham, of Saybrook, says $1.25 to $2. Mr. Miles says that in 1873 the prices ranged from $1 to $2.50, according to the yield of oil. Mr. F. Lillington, of Shatford, puts it, for 1875, at from $1.50 to $2. Captain Sisson, of Greenport, says that in 1873 the price was $2.25; in previous years, $1.75; in 1874 the price was lower. Collector Havens, of Sag Harbor,

*A" round barrel" is a barrel of undressed fish, and weighs about 200 pounds. The number of fish in a barrel necessarily varies with their size. Estimates range from 180 to 280; but that made by Mr. Fairchild, at the meeting of the "United States Menhaden Oil and Guano Association," in 1874, is perhaps fair, putting four barrels to a thousand fish, or 250 fish to a barrel.

+ Report United States Commission Fish and Fisheries, 1871-72, p. 35.

N. Y., estimates it at 30 cents per barrel. In the vicinity of Atlantic City, N. J., M. A. G. Wolf gives the price at $1.25 to the thousand; and Mr. Albert Morris, of Somers Point, at 39 cents per barrel (about $1.50 to the thousand). Mr. Hance Lawson, of Cresfield, Md., states that the Chesapeake factories pay 15 cents per bushel.* Mr. Dudley says that in 1877 the average price in the Chesapeake was 50 cents a thousand.

Prices proportionate to amount of oil contained in fish.

253. These prices are simply those paid for fish used in the manufac ture of oil and guano, the prices of those sold for bait or food being given under other heads. No satisfactory conclusions can be drawn from these statements, except the very general one that the fish are more valuable on the eastern than on the southern coast of New En gland; in Maine bringing from $2.40 to $3.20 to the thousand; on Long Island Sound, $1 to $2.25. As the expense of capture is necessarily as great in Southern as in Northern waters, we must seek the reason of the difference in price either in the methods of manufacture, the abun dance of the fish, or in the intrinsic value of the fish for the purposes of the manufacturer.

Oil yield of Northern fish.

254. On the first arrival of the schools in Northern water the fish are thin and do not yield a large quantity of oil; but they rapidly gain un til the time of their departure in fall, so that the late fishing is by far the most profitable. It is the general opinion of fishermen that Northern fish yield a larger proportionate amount of oil than Southern.

Mr. Sargent, of Castine, Mc., says that three quarts of oil to the barrel is the smallest yield he has ever known from the first school, and six gallons the most from the last school. When the fish are very poor, about the 1st of June, it takes 250 to make one gallon of oil; when poor, in July, 200; when fat, in August, 150; when very fat, in October, 100. About one ton of scrap is obtained in making three barrels of oil. Mr. Condon states that when the fish arrive in the spring they will produce but one gallon to the barrel, while in October the yield is four or five gallons; the average for the season being three gallons. Mr. Friend states that the least yield, in June, is two quarts to the barrel; the greatest, in August, four gallons. Mr. Kenniston states that May fish yield three pints to the barrel; October fish, six gallons and one-half. These are no doubt intended as the extreme figures. The average yield is two and one-half gallons to the barrel, an estimate in which Mr. Brightman concurs, though placing the lowest at three quarts; the highest, in August and September, at four gallons. He estimates the yield of a ton of scrap at thirty to forty gallons, according to the season. Judson Tarr & Co. put the early fish at less than a gallon, the September fish at four gallons to the barrel. Mr. Babson thinks that the early

* About 50 cents per barrel, or $2 to the thousand.

fish yield about a gallon, the last four gallons; an estimate in which he is confirmed by Mr. E. B. Phillips.

Mr. Erskine Pierce, of Dartmouth, Mass., states that in 1877 the av erage yield at his factory was 14 gallons to the barrel.

According to Mr. Church, the fish are fattest generally in the fall, though after a warm winter he has known them after first arrival to yield 2 gallons. After a cold winter the opposite is true; and he has seen them so poor in the summer that out of one hundred barrels of fish not a pint of oil could be extracted. The first 18,000 barrels taken by Church & Co., on the coast of Maine, in 1873, did not make over 14,000 gallons of oil (about three quarts to the barrel). On Narragansett Bay, in 1873, the yield was 13 gallons less than on the coast of Maine; on Long Island Sound, half a gallon.

Mr. Reuben Chapman informed me that at his factory, on Mason's Island, opposite Noank, Conn., the yield of early fish was sometimes as low as a gallon to the thousand, later in the season reaching fourteen or even eighteen gallons; which would be equivalent to five or six gallons to the barrel.

Mr. Maddocks, writing of the Maine fish, states: "The yield of oil sometimes doubles, per head, in thirty days after their coming. The fish taken on the coast of Maine yield a considerably larger supply of oil than those taken at points farther south, around Long Island, off the Jersey shore, &c. The amount of oil per barrel of fish is there about one gallon, against two and a half here, for the whole season in each case."

And again: "The amount of oil realized varies from one gallon per barrel of fish early in the season to four or five gallons in September. The scrap contains, on the average, as it comes from the press, 55 to 60 per cent. of its weight in water, and sometimes more. This is, of course, worthless for fertilizing purposes. It also contains from 12 to 20 per cent. of fat or oil, which is equally worthless for manure."

Mr. Dudley considers that the first taken in Long Island Sound yield, on an average, about 4 gallons to the thousand. At Pine Island it is somewhat greater; one season averaged 3, another 6. In 1877 the average to June 12 was 5 gallons; to November 1, 3 gallons. On November 1 the fat fish made their appearance, and the average has since doubtless greatly increased. There is usually an increase in the yield of oil after July 1, but since 1874 this has not been the case in Southern New England. Mr. Dudley has cooked fish which would not yield a quart of oil to the thousand. Again, in November, the yield has been 18 gallons. It is the opinion of Mr. Dudley that dark oil only is yielded by fish taken in brackish water; light oil by those taken outside.

The George W. Miles Company, of Milford, states that the largest amount made by them in one factory in any one year was in 1871, when they produced 100,000 in about fifty working days; the largest quantity in the shortest time was 21,000 gallons in seventy-two hours, or 7,000

gallons to each day of twenty-four hours. In 1872 they produced 60,000 gallons, and in 1873 105,000 gallons in their two factories, one factory not operating all the time on account of a pending lawsuit.

According to Capt. J. L. Stokes of the Salt Island Oil Company, the average yield of oil is four gallons to the thousand, 9,000 fish making a ton of scrap. Captain Beebe and Mr. Ingham put the highest for the region about the mouth of the Connecticut River at eight gallons, or perhaps three gallons or less to the barrel.

Mr. Miles writes: "All depends upon the quality of the fish, whether fat or poor. In July, August, and September we only get fish that come into the Sound to feed, and they fatten after they get here. If they are poor, we have the largest catch in June and July; if they are increas ing in fat or yield of oil, we cannot capture them successfully until Au gust and September. The fat fish in the Sound are usually wild and hard to take until late, perhaps owing to the fact that their food is plenty and low in the water. When the season is unusually dry, the fish are sure to be fat; but in a wet season they are found to be below the average in yield of oil. After the fish get here, if their food is plenty, they grow fat very fast. In the past season (1873), in May and June, one million of fish would make only 800 gallons; in August, the yield was from 8 to 10 gallons per thousand, and in September, 10 to 12."

At Greenport, in 1873, the average yield, on Captain Sisson's estimate, was 8 gallons to the thousand; the smallest yield, half a gallon in spring and late fall; the greatest, 22, in September and October; 8,000 fish make a ton of green scrap. Mr. Havens,puts the lowest yield at one quart to the barrel, the highest at 4 gallons, an estimate much below Captain Sisson's, which would make over 6 gallons to the barrel.

Hawkins Bros. estimate the lowest yield at one gallon to the barrel in midsummer, and 4 in October and November, putting the average quantity of fish to the gallon at one-third of a barrel on Gardiner's Bay, one-half at Barren Island, and 85 gallons to a ton of scrap on Gardiner's Bay, 57 at the island.

At Atlantic City, N. J., according to Mr. A. G. Wolf, the average yield is 4 gallons to the thousand, the greatest in November, 11; a ton of scrap corresponding to 40 gallons of oil.

On Great Egg Harbor, states Mr. Morris, July fish yield one quart of oil to the barrel; those of October and November yielding 4 gallons. A gallon of oil is the average to each barrel of fish, and 45 gallons to a ton of scrap.

The yield to each barrel of fish was thus estimated by Rhode Island manufacturers in 1877: Joseph Church & Co. and W. H. H. Howland, 1 gallon; Charles Cook, Job T. Wilson, Isaac G. White, and James Manchester, 1 gallons; Isaac Brown & Co., 135; and William J. Brightman, 11.

Connecticut manufacturers are estimated as follows: The George W. Miles Company, 23 gallons to the thousand; Leander Wilcox & Co., 3

gallons; G. 8. Allyn & Co., 3 gallons; Waley & Co. and Luce Brothers, 31 gallons; the Quinnipiac Fertilizer Company, 33 gallons; J. H. Bishop, 3.gallons; and Fowler & Colburn, 33 gallons.

New York manufacturers are estimated as follows: The Barren Island Manufacturing Company, G. H. Clark, W. Y. Fithian & Co., 24 gallons to the thousand; Smith & Yarington, 23 gallons; S. Jones & Co., 4 gallons; eleven factories in Gardiner's Bay, 3 gallons.

New Jersey manufacturers are estimated as follows: Morris & Fifield, 2 gallons to the thousand; James E. Otis, Griffen & Vail, Cyrus H. Smith, 2 gallons.

Maine manufacturers in 1877 were reported as follows: Albert Gray & Co., 13 gallons to the barrel; Gallup, Morgan & Co., 2594 gallons; Fowler, Foot & Co., 21 gallons; Suffolk Oil Company, 24 gallons; R. A. Friend, 2 gallons; Gallup & Holmes, 23 gallons; Loud's Island Company, 23 gallons.

M. Maddocks declares that on the coast of Maine "one hundred and ninety-five pounds of fish make a barrel. One barrel yields about two and a half gallons of oil or eighteen and three-quarter pounds. One barrel yields about eighty pounds of chum or scrap."

Oil yield of Southern fish.

255. Mr. Kenniston makes the following statement: "Corresponding with the successive appearance of the menhaden from South to North there is a progressive improvement in size and fatness. When they arrive in Chesapeake Bay, in the spring, they are thin and lean, and appear to be sluggish and stupid, so that they are easily caught-can almost be taken out by the hand along the shore, which many of them follow closely. Between Virginia and Maine the increase in weight is thought to be one-third. In the fall the increase still continues, but the order of it is reversed, the fish appearing to grow larger the farther South they go, and on reaching Virginia again are twice as heavy as in the spring, and have so gained in strength, swiftness, and wariness that they are very hard to catch."*

Mr. Dudley tells me that from his experience of two years he knows that the first runs of fish in the Chesapeake are fat. This is in March and April.

Mr. A. C. Davis states that the June fish at Beaufort yield from to 1 gallon, those in October and November 4 to 5 gallons.

Mr. W. F. Hatsel, of Body's Island, states that the average yield is 11 gallons to the barrel, 75 gallons to the ton of scrap.

Comparison of yield in different localities.

256. These statements indicate in a general way that the yield of Northern is greater than that of Southern fish, though the disparity is not so * Boardman and Atkins, op. cit., p. 6.