168 MADRAS FISHfiRIES BULLETIN VOL. XIII, 



magistrates had to intervene and the method mostly died out. 

 The oil was, of course, of the worst description and odour, but was 

 useful in caulking and smearing the planks of country craft. A 

 good deal of this oil was once exported, it is said, from Cochin, 

 but the trade had practically died out before the end of the 

 nineteenth century. 



45. But in 1907-08 the Fisheries Department, then newly started 

 (1906), took up this important subject and based experiments and 

 suggestions on early American practice, viz., that of boiling the 

 fish in large pans, pressing the mass for the oil in manual presses, 

 and drying the press cakes as fertilizer. Success was immediate; 

 the example of the Department and of an enterprising merchant, 

 Mr. U. Choyi of Cannanore, was followed by nine small similar 

 works in the same year, and these have continuously increased till 

 the number on over 250 miles of coast now exceeds 600 while the 

 output of dry fertilizer approaches 20,000 tons and that of oil may 

 run to one-fourth of that weight in ordinarily good years. Such 

 statistics as are available will be mentioned below. 



46. This rapid development has had its disadvantages : 



(1) the earliest methods were imperfect and even erroneous, 

 and these mistakes have been imitated and popularized; 



(2) buildings and premises were often, perhaps generally, 

 unsuitable in structure and locality ; if specially built they were 

 generally built with a main eye to cheapness, and were, and are 

 often dark, ill-ventilated, and not easily kept clean ; they frequently 

 found difficulty in running off the large quantities of waste, putres- 

 cibl? fluid and thus caused great nuisance ; they are often located 

 in crowded quarters to the great annoyance of neighbours; 



(3) they were started and run on too small a capital from 

 which many evils have developed, such as imperfect methods and 

 plant, inability to modify such methods or to introduce improve- 

 ments, inferior products further injured by adulteration such as 

 the deliberate addition of sand to the fertilizer ; 



(4) the falling into the power of money-lenders, brokers, etc., 

 owing to the individual weakness and need of capital of the manu- 

 facturers, and therefore inability to stand up against adverse 

 seasons or to avoid selling at unduly low prices ; 



(5) the spoiling of the reputation of both oil and fertilizer by 

 poor and adulterated products and consequently the loss of 

 markets ; 



