No. 5 (1922) SARDINE CANNING 119 



With patience, these obstacles are being overcome ; even now there 

 is a notable improvement in the cleanliness of the products of 

 these yards. 



Canning. — Experimental work was begun at Calicut in 1911, and 

 transferred later to Chaliyam, 7 miles to the south. Complete 

 success has been attained on the operative side, the quality of the 

 goods packed being, in the opinion of experts, equal to similar 

 European products. Notably is this the case in regard to the 

 canning of sardines, mackerel and prawns ; these constitute the 

 bulk of the goods produced. The Indian oil sardine (Sardinella 

 longiceps) at its best, is, in my opinion, fully equal to the true 

 French sardine, which is in reality the young of the pilchard. Its 

 oil content is greater than the latter, and this, I hold, is the chief 

 criterion by which to estimate the value of the sardine for canning 

 purposes. 



Oil and guano factories. — Prior to the experimental work of the 

 Fisheries Department in 1908, the amount of sardine oil produced 

 on the West Coast was inconsiderable and of the worst possible 

 quality. The usual method was to obtain the oil by the putrefac- 

 tion of a mass of sardines contained in a worn out and filthy 

 dug-out canoe. It was also a wasteful process, for the proteid and 

 other residue were thrown into the sea. Similarly when fertilizer 

 was made from sardines, the ancient and accepted procedure was 

 to spread the sardines on the sand of the open beach, and so dry 

 them in the sun. This had two drawbacks — large quantities of 

 valuable oil, of no manurial value, were wasted, and the product 

 became so highly impregnated with sand that analysis not infre- 

 quently showed the resultant mass to contain as much as 40 per 

 cent of this useless adulterant. 



The experiments made by the department had unexampled and 

 swift success. It was found that a simple and quite inexpensive 

 plant could be devised to separate the oil and fertilizer effectively 

 and profitably. The high quality of the oil and fertilizer (" fish 

 guano " as it is now known technically) reacted favourably upon 

 prices, and has rendered this new industry so profitable that 

 literally hundreds of small factories have come into existence. 

 In this case the demonstrations we were able to give were so 

 conclusive financially, that the small capitalists of the West Coast 

 rushed to share in the big profits that were being made by those 

 first in the field. At the close of the 1919-20 fishery year the 



