No. I (1920) ADMINISTRATION REPORT, 1918-iq 31 



ANNEXURE No. I. 



Report by the Honorary Superintendent upon the West 

 Coast Experimental Station for the year 19 18-19. 

 In November 1918 Mr. J. Hornell was appointed Director of Fisheries, 

 the Honorary Director, with the name of Honorary Superintendent, retaining 

 only the work of the West Coast which then included — 



(1) the experimental cannery at Chaliyam (Beypore) ; 



(2) the experimental fish-curing at Tanur ; 



(3) co-operation ; 



(4) education and other socio-economic work ; 



(5) fish oil and guano operations, including the supply offish oil to 

 the Munitions Board ; 



(6) fish-curing yards. 



2. The Experimental Cannery. — This worked as usual but was sadly 

 hampered both by the war conditions and by the poor supply of fish. 

 Owing to the war, developments, e.g., in the purchase of plant for improve- 

 ments were impossible; the stock of tin plate having been exhausted this 

 essential had to be locally purchased at prices three times higher than in 

 1914 and even 1915, and for plate of greatly inferior size, weight and quality 

 insomuch that the solderless plant could not be utilized for such plate. 

 Solder went to about double the pre-war price, and proper packing oils were 

 almost unobtainable, olive oil in quantity being out of the market, cotton- 

 seed oil unprocurable, and superior ground-nut oil only available at nearly 

 treble the normal prices. Fortunately a priority certificate for tin plate was 

 obtained early in the year 1918, and the tin plate was delivered in the 

 autumn which so far relieved the situation ; the delivered price of this 

 supply was about double that of -the 1915 parcel. Notwithstanding these 

 extraordinary items of cost, the sale price of goods was not raised above 

 that of 1917-18. 



3. As regards fish difficulties, the sardines were very abundant but 

 generally of miserable canning quality, the size being so small for the greater 

 part of the season that fish were packed at perhaps 36 to the tin instead of 

 11 or 12. These immature fish gave poor results in canning, being lean 

 and comparatively bony ; so much so that for some time I stopped canning 

 them, though abundant. 



4. Again, mackerel were comparatively absent from that part of the 

 coast (South Malabar) and only 9,716 cans could be packed notwithstanding 

 all exertions, and the end of the year has left us with almost a nil balance 



