In the height of the fishery they are not prepared to cure or otherwise dispose of them as fast as they could be caught; of course the seines slacken in their work, or the fish lie and spoil when that is the only time I can make anything by the seine, for small hauls will hardly pay the wear and tear of the seine and the hire of the hands.
However, then as now, fishing was a gamble:
Unless the weather grows warmer your fishing this season will, I fear, prove unproductive; for it has always been observed that in cold and windy weather the fish keep in deep water and are never caught in numbers, especially at shallow landings.
And in 1794, he states, with the rather weary voice of experience,
I am of opinion that selling the fish all to one man is best ... if Mr. Smith will give five shillings per thousand for herrings and twelve shillings a hundred for shad, and will oblige himself to take all you have to spare, you had better strike and enter into a written agreement with him.... I never choose to sell to wagoners; their horses have always been found troublesome, and themselves indeed not less so, being much addicted to the pulling down and burning the fences. If you do not sell to Smith the next best thing is to sell to the watermen.... I again repeat that when the schools of fish run you must draw night and day; and whether Smith is prepared to take them or not, they must be caught and charged to him; for it is then and then only I have a return for my expenses; and then it is the want of several purchasers is felt; for unless one person is extremely well prepared he cannot dispose of the fish as fast as they can be drawn at those times and if the seine or seines do no more than keep pace with his convenience my harvest is lost and of course my profit; for the herrings will not wait to be caught as they are wanted to be cured.
Thus did Washington become one of the first to encounter the besetting plague of American mass production: the problem of distribution.
That fishing was a vital prop in plantation economy is evidenced by a letter of April 24, 1796, to his manager:
As your prospect for gain is discouraging, it may, in a degree, be made up in a good fishing season for herrings; that for shad must, I presume, be almost, if not quite, over.
Salt herrings were a staple in the feeding of the "black people," and were issued to those at Mount Vernon at the rate of twenty a month per head. But he warned about waiting for the annually expected herring "glut" to occur before the slaves were provided for. If it should fail to materialize—as had been known—what then? Save a "sufficiency of fish" from the first runs, he wisely ordered.
In 1781 he suggested that salt fish be contracted for the troops, and possibly it was tried for a while, but the year following, army leaders voted to exclude fish from the rations.