542 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE FRENCH SARDINE INDUSTRY. 



By Dr. HUGH M. SMITH, 



U. S. COMMISSION OF FISH AND FISHERIE-i. 



A MONG the foreign fishery industries on which Americans are 

 -^-*- dependent for a part of their food supply, few exceed in in- 

 terest or importance the sardine industry of France. The value of the 

 French sardines imported into the United States is about one million 

 dollars annually, and the wholesome, palatable and convenient canned 

 sardine is consumed in nearly every community. The accompanying 

 notes on the sardijie and the industries to which it gives rise are ex- 

 tracted from an article in the 'Bulletin' of the United States Fish Com- 

 mission for 1901, based on the writer's personal observations in Brit- 

 tany, the i^rincipal center of the sardine fishery. 



The sardine is the leading fishery product taken in the waters of 

 France. From official statistics it appears that in 1898 the sardine 

 fishery gave employment to 31,871 fishermen; the number of boats 

 used was 8,164, valued at 5,934,633 francs; the apparatus employed 

 was worth 7,030,945 francs; the quantity of sardines taken was 53,924,- 

 275 kilograms (or 118,633,400 pounds) ; and the selling price of the 

 fresh fish was 9,204,988 francs (or about $1,840,997). 



There exists considerable uncertainty among the fishing interests 

 and the general public in America and Europe regarding the sardine 

 of the Bay of Biscay and the Mediterranean Sea. Some persons have 

 believed that the sardine canned in France is a distinct species, while 

 others have held that the French sardine, like the sardine of New Eng- 

 land, is simply the young of some herring-like fish. The term sardine 

 is a general one, applied to various clupeoid fishes, mostly of small 

 size, in different parts of the world, and can not be restricted to any 

 particular fish. Thus, there are the Spanish sardine of the West In- 

 dies and Florida; the California sardine, found along the entire west 

 coast of the United States; the Chile sardine; the oil sardine of 

 India; and the sardines of Japan and New Zealand. But the sardine 

 par excellence is the French sardine, called also celeren, celan, royan, 

 galice and cradeau on various parts of the French coast. The name 

 sardine has reference to the island of Sardinia, in the Mediterranean, 

 about whose shores the fish is abundant. 



As early as 1553, Pierre Belon, a French naturalist, asserted that 

 the sardine is the young of the pilchard ; and this is the view now held 



