250 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



cannery where the cooking and packing processes take 

 place. 



There they are dumped on tables to be spread on flakes, 

 made of galvanized iron wire, two by three feet in size. 

 The cost of spreading is 40 cents per 100 flakes. After 

 the spreading the flakes are placed in racks to the number 

 of 20 to 24 to a rack. The racks are upright wooden 

 frames set on rollers and have cross-pieces about three 

 inches apart for holding the flakes. After a rack has 

 been filled it is rolled into the oven a room a little 

 larger than the car. Here the fish remain from ten to 

 fifteen minutes while they are cooked by steam, which is 

 let into the enclosure from the boiler-room. This process 

 of cooking has supplanted the former method of preparing 

 the fish for the cans, which was to place them in large 

 frying pans of heated oil for one or two minutes. 



When the cars emerge from the cooking-room they are 

 rolled in front of the dryer, an enclosed place heated 

 from the furnace and containing a huge horizontal wheel 

 with ten large arms each holding eight flakes. The wheel 

 is on the principle of the Ferris wheel, the arms remain- 

 ing horizontal as the wheel rotates. Two persons work 

 at the front of the dryer, one removing from the arms 

 the flakes of fish that have already been dried and the 

 other putting in fish flakes as the others are removed. 

 When an arm has been re-supplied the wheel is turned so 

 that the next arm comes before the workman to be relieved 

 of its flakes of dried fish. In this way the wheel rotates 

 once in about twenty minutes, which is the time required 

 for drying. As the flakes of dried fish are removed from 

 the dryer they are again placed upon the racks, and these 

 are rolled to the packing tables. The fish are now ready to 

 be packed in the cans. 



A more economical method for drying the fish than that 

 described above is employed in some canneries. There the 



