Fish stock

“ The trade in salted and sun-dried fish is extensive and finds its way all over the kingdom; an overland traffic of considerable importance exists with the capital. Strings or stacks of dried fish are to be seen in every village. Pack ponies, and coolies laden with loads of dried fish, are met upon every road in the kingdom. The pedestrian who “humps his own swag” almost always carries a small stock with him. The parallel industry to the business of curing fish is the operation of making salt from sea-water, a pursuit which is conducted in a manner equally rough and casual. ”

“ The fisheries were very extensive, and would require four frigates thoroughly to protect them. Exports were included under salt meat, beef, and mutton; tallow; butter, close packed; wool in the grease; skins of sheep, foxes, and seals; feathers, especially eider down; oil of whales, sharks, and seals; fine and coarse jackets of Wadmal, woollen stockings, and mitts; stock-fish and sulphur. The imports were fishing-tackle, horse-shoes, carpenters’ woods, coffee and sugar, tobacco and snuff, beer, brandy, and wine, dry goods (calicoes, etc.) , flour (wheat and rye) , bread and biscuit. ”

“ From Howietoun, and from some other places as well, gentlemen can stock their ponds or other ornamental water with fecundated ova in a certain state of forwardness; or they can procure, for a definite sum of money, fish of all ages from tiny fry to active yearlings, or well grown two-year olds! Sporting-waters which have been overfished can be easily replenished by procuring a few thousand eggs or yearlings; while angling clubs which rent a loch or important stream can, at a very small cost, keep up the supplies, whether of trout or salmon. ”

“ The valuation of pet stock also varies according to the age, shape, color, and purity of breed, and the amount of intelligence or training possessed by the animal. The supply and demand also regulate the market price, as, for instance, I have known gold-fish of best size and color to be disposed of to dealers as low as two dollars per hundred in the months of June, July, and August, but during the months of October, November, and December the same quality of fish rose in price to ten and fifteen dollars per hundred. ”

“ I do yet believe, that a sort of fish, bred in great numbers in bad waters, over-stocked, and almost starved, may in process of time degenerate, and both lose a good shape, and be [54] less apt to grow up to a due greatness, than others that have been better descended of a cultivated stock: and on the other side, it is no less possible, that by coming into good quarters, fish may improve and mend; so that a gentleman is to expect the goodness of his fish from the cleanness of his waters, and the plenty of their feed, and not from any choice of his stock or breed ”

“ The various families to whom the net belongs crowd down to the shore for their share of the fish; for, as the net costs a great deal of money, the price is divided, perhaps, between half a dozen owners. During the winter season, should there have been any failure in the fishing, great hardships are sometimes felt by these poor people. [Pg 25] The stock of salt fish is done; potatoes are dear, and money to buy bread is but scarce. ”

“ There is a growing market for the young bass or fingerlings to stock streams and ponds. The relation between the producer of stock fish and those who expect to raise bass of a marketable size is about the same as exists between the professional seed grower and the market gardener. It is much better for the small farmer who has or can make an artificial pond to buy his fingerlings from the professional breeder, who has facilities which are too elaborate to be duplicated on a small scale. ”

“ If there aren't any fish in the brook you can stock it up without any trouble, and it would save you the money you pay to fish-markets as well as the nuisance of going fishing yourself and putting worms on hooks. ”

“ A considerable amount of cash transactions, and sales of goods for butter and eggs, also take place at their counters; and many of them deal in cattle and kelp, and are engaged in the Faroe fishing. With all these sources of income, however, it is difficult to believe that no larger direct profit per cent. is earned from so complicated and hazardous a business as the ling fishing.
STOCK SOLD TO MERCHANTS Next to fish, cattle sold form the largest and most common credit in the account of the fisherman farmer, although this is not, like fish, an indispensable item in the account. ”

“ If you would bring more fish together into your stews, you may preserve and improve them by feeding; but there are bounds, because the water is but small, and will not admit any great number: but if you have a great number of fish to be kept for an opportunity, and you put them into a considerable water, you may in that manner stock to any quantity, taking care duly to feed them; and so not only maintain, but improve one thousand per acre; but if thus over-stocked, and you do not feed sufficiently, they will sink, and you be a great loser. ”

“ Waters may be over-stocked, as pastures often are; so both may be under-stocked. The latter is the less error; for if you over-stock, you lose the whole summer’s seed; if you under-stock, you lose only the rest of your profit; what you do seed, is much the better, and turns to account by more ready sale. So also of beasts; some of the same age and seeding will not thrive so well as others. I have found the like in my fish. And waters themselves, like pastures, have varieties of goodness; some will raise carps from five to eighteen inches, in five years; others will not do it in ten. ”

“ It is a common observation, that some waters will, and others will not breed. It is my experience, that most waters, the first year after having lain dry a summer, do breed, and that numerously, especially carps, which I have known increase to such an incredible fry, that I have been troubled how to dispose them, so as to have them again after three or four years, when they became good stock for great waters. Eels and perch are of very good use to keep down the breed of fish; for they prey much upon the spawn and fry of bred fish, and will probably destroy the superfluity of them. ”

“ The price of the different kinds of fishes is by no means proportional to their individual food values. It is determined primarily by the abundance or otherwise of the available supply of each individual species. Thus, the various pelagic fish—mackerel, herring, sprat—that are easily caught in enormous quantities at certain seasons of the year are by far the most valuable. Of trawl-caught fish, cod and whiting are more plentiful and are, therefore, cheaper than hake, although, again, the cheaper fish has the greater food value. ”

“ When these towns, once so exclusively maritime, found the fishery slipping through their fingers, they took up shoe-making, and at present you will see plenty of Crispins, but not many blue-jackets, in Marblehead. Cobbling is now carried on in the barn-lofts, fish-houses, and cottages. Yet this change of condition is not met, as in the failing whale-fishery, by a supply from a different source; fish continues to be as highly esteemed and in greater request than ever; it is the supply, not the demand, that is diminishing. ”

“ At length a few seagulls appear in the western sky, and the cry echoes from camp to camp that the fish are at hand.
Immense shoals of oolikan come in from the Pacific, followed by larger fish such as the halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finned-back -whale. Over the fish hover the sea-birds—"an immense cloud of innumerable gulls," wrote Bishop Hills after a visit to the place, "so many and so thick that as they moved to and fro, up and down, the sight resembled a heavy fall of snow." Over the gulls, again, soar the eagles watching for their prey. ”

“ He worked. His activities became gyroscopic. To cease them would have been to collapse. It was only the thought, the vaguest dream of finding Wade, that sustained his momentum during those feverish flays and nights of preparation.
And with those that followed it was the same. The boat sped through a pass in the Great Barrier as through a portal into a world jewelled with islets, peopled with flying fish and seabird. ”

“ In some cases certain fish, although fairly abundant, are in poor demand owing to some prejudice on the part of the public, and are generally sold in poorer districts, or to the fried fish trade, at a disproportionately low price, for example skate, dog-fish, angler fish, john dory. ”

“ I have seen the Indians in all phases of their existence, from the half-naked savage, perched, like a bird of prey, in a red blanket upon a rock, trying to catch his miserable dinner of fish, to the neat maiden in Mr. Duncan's school at Metlakhatla, as modest and as well dressed as any clergyman's daughter in an English parish.
"What you want are not resources, but human beings to develope them and consume them. Raise your 80,000 Indians to the level Mr. Duncan has taught us they can be brought, and consider what an enormous amount of vital power you will have added to your present strength." ”

“ Thirty to thirty-five francs a thousand is usually the market price, and the choicest fish naturally sell first. Speculation comes in now and then, and a scare as to the prospect of the catch being too abundant is as common and as disastrous as the fear that it may not be large enough. ”

“ She was at his side in an instant, clucking with wonder at the brightly coloured picture of fish—fish of all shapes and sizes and colours. They hung there on the white paper as though in some clear pool.
Suddenly a brown finger descended on the page.
"Eo," she cried excitedly, "him, an' him, an' him!"
"A compliment for the lithographer," muttered Sirjohnnie, smiling. "Wilkinson and Pratt are good people."
"An' him, an' him," continued Felisi. "Him no good," she added with a pout, indicating a rather washy representation of sea and coral at the foot of the page. ”

“ We will only remark, therefore, that, in large cities, fresh fish are sold either in a fish-market, or are hawked about the streets. The wives of the fishermen are very often employed in selling the fish caught by their husbands. The fisheries which are of the greatest consequence, in general commerce, are those which relate to herring, mackerel, salmon, seal, and whale. ”

“ Some time in the afternoon—Sirjohnnie had had no lunch, in spite of Mandri's importunities—she went to the bush and returned to one of the pools with an armful of green vine. This she tossed into the water and squatted back on the sand. Presently a fish appeared, then another and another, until the pool was alive with scintillating colour; but there was no movement—every fish in that pool, from the remotest cranny of coral, floated inert close to the surface.
Sirjohnnie, when at last Felisi succeeded in enticing him away from the net for an inspection, was overcome. ”

“ All fish are sold by the "tail," or by number excepting salmon, which are sold by weight, and oysters and shell-fish by measure. The baskets are instantly emptied on the tables, and the porters hasten for a fresh supply. It is the fisherman's interest to bring his whole cargo into the market as soon as possible, for if the quantity brought to market be large, prices will fall the more quickly, and if they are high, buyers purchase less freely, and he may miss the sale. ”

“ Passing behind the Conservatory and down the Eastern Arcade--in which will be arranged algæ, sponges, mollusca, star-fish, worms used for bait, insects which destroy spawn or which serve as food for fish, etc.--on turning to the left, we find ourselves in the fish market, which will probably vie with the aquaria on the other side in attracting popular attention. This model Billingsgate is to be divided into two parts, the one for the sale of fresh, the other of dried and cured fish. ”

“ Owing to the desirability of the black bass for stocking waters, the demand for both private and public streams and ponds is far in excess of the supply. Undoubtedly the best plan for stocking is that of planting adult fish, as already alluded to. But owing to the difficulty of obtaining adult fish, the energies of fish culturists have for years been directed to a solution of the question of supply. ”

“ Felisi obeyed instructions in every respect except speed. Sirjohnnie was capering round the pool like a madman when she returned.
"This is nothing short of a discovery," he told her, in a shaking voice. "What is it, Filisi? But, of course, you don't know." He clucked impatiently.
And that was where he was wrong, Felisi told herself, squatting in the sand, triumphant. She knew—the whole of Luana knew—that it was a vine that grew in the bush, and, when flung into a pool, stupefied fish. What more did anyone want to know? The ignorance of these white chiefs was beyond belief. ”

“ Many circumstances conspire to make the variations in price greater than in the case of any other food commodity. The fact that fish is a most perishable article of food and is usually caught while travelling in shoals, results in alternate scarcity and over-supply of a particular kind of fish, whilst the question whether the purchaser resides near or far away from a seaside or big distributing town, affects the situation. ”

“ It is a strange experience to approach one's home as a trespasser. Indeed, the thing is impossible. Miri assured herself of this as the canoe glided silently toward the seaward end of the fish fence. Who has better right of entry than the housewife? She asked herself the question while making fast the canoe, and answered it by peering cautiously through the bamboos.
Dusk had fallen, and there was no light in Ah Fang's room. The place was deserted. Yet Miri dived and swam under water to the beach, and, as she swam, her hands, out of habit, passed over the familiar floor of the lagoon. ”