MACKEREL, considered by many the most beautiful of all fish which find their way to our markets, are usually seen here about the beginning of May. They are seldom brought in a live state to our markets, being generally handled salted in barrels ; but of late years appearing in tin cans.
The fish are carefully selected and placed in the barrels and numbered for the market 1, 2, 3, 4, ac cording to the quality. It is necessary that No. 1 quality Should not be under thirteen inches, free from taint, damage and rust, and fine, fat fish. No. 2 must be fat and free from rust, and not. less than eleven inches. No. 3 is what are left in the selection of Nos. 1 and 2. No. 4 is what are left in the selection of all the other three brands, but must be free from damage or taint. Mackerel are packed into barrels or kits containing from fifteen to two hundred pounds; they are also extensively canned, and can even be opened and sold without any great risk on the part of the dealer. Mackerel taken in June are thought superior to the spring or fall catch.
The following, from the Providence Journal, is of interest :— " The packing and re-packing of mackerel is an extensive busi ness, and the result of the latter, that is, repacking, is not always satisfactory to dealers or consumers. A barrel of mackerel weighs two hundred pounds. Two half barrels, then, should weigh one hundred pounds each, but it has happened too often that half barrels weighed fifteen or twenty pounds less than the hun dyed. If a half barrel weighs eighty pounds, the re-packer from a whole barrel saved for his own profit forty pounds, or two kits of mackerel. This was a net gain to the packer and a dead loss to the buyer. This system of under-weight3 produced in re-pack ing has been carried to such an extent that there is an urgent de mand for some law to regulate weights and measures, or some system of inspection to prevent the fraud and robbery now going on.
" Some of these, or perhaps the most short weights are made for the benefit of the country trade. The country dealer, sup posing that his half barrel of mackerel contains one hundred pounds, bases his sale-price and profits on one hundred pounds, finding, when he reaches the bottom of the barrel, that he is short twenty pounds, and, of course, a good share, if not all, his profits on that half barrel. If he finds the weight to be short in the be ginning, the loss of twenty pounds is made up by increase of price to consumer.
" The same system of packing is carried on with respect to kits, which ought to contain one-tenth of a barrel, or twenty pounds. They are often short three, four, or five pounds. The consumer may be offered a kit of mackerel at an under-price, and, buying, believes he is saving money, when he may be losing by the short weight of the kit. Some dealers who paid full prices for short weight kits, demanded a rebate and got it. The remedy is easy ; test the weight before buying. We would advise our readers to
weigh their purchases of fish and learn if the weight paid for has been furnished. If not, the deficiency shows the amount of which they have been defrauded, and reclamations should be in every instance demanded, and the impositions exposed." In an address before the Massachusetts Fish and Game Asso ciation, Mr. Shebanah Rice says concerning the mackerel : " The historic mackerel made his best flip in America with his insatiate friend, the conservative codfish, to the great delight of the Pilgrims and Puritans, in their exceeding time of nee4, a kind service their sons and daughters are not soon inclined to forget.
Of all the finny tribes that roam or sport in the ocean, the mack erel is the most beautiful, eatable and valuable. While fresh it is found upon the table of the rich and poor many months in the year, affording always a healthy and desirable, sometimes a deli cious, and often for months an exceedingly cheap kind of food. Fresh mackerel have been sold in London markets as high as seven shillings each, and as low as sixty for one shilling.
There have been inspected in Massachusetts alone, during the ten years preceding and including 1874, 2,316,083 barrels, an average of 231,000 barrels annually. At an average price of $12.50 per barrel, which must be conceded a low estimate for these years, we have an annual product of about $3,000,000 from the salt mackerel department of Massachusetts. In 1850 Professor Storer estimated that about 8,000 barrels of fresh mackerel were sold in the Boston market. Since 1850, owing to increased facili ties for transportation, and the general use of ice, this branch has augmented in Boston at least tenfold. Immense quantities are carried direct to New York market during the spring and early summer, counting which, and other places, it would seem a safe calculation that at least half as many mackerel are now sold fresh as are salt packed. Estimating their values the same as the salted fish, and allowing only $5,000.000 for all the mackerel caught in Maine and the other States, we have $5,000,000 annual income to the industry of the State, on an outlay of $13,000,000. This .$5,000,000 is purely productive ; every dollar comes from the ocean. Not even farming is so pre-eminently and entirely a pro ductive industry. The fisherman plows an untaxed furrow that needs no replenishing year by year.
It is almost incredible how fast mackerel may be caught by a trained crew. The mackerel sometimes go up so fast that the whole side of the vessel shines like silver. In July, 1S42, a crew of eleven men and boys "struck a school " of biting mackerel on George's Bank. In twenty-five minutes they caught twenty-three strike-barrels (a barrel so full that the live mackerel jumped out). Ten hours such fishing would give 600 strike-barrels, which, at the present price of that quality, would stock $7,000.