^56 



greater — weight of fish than those sold as quarters or 

 halves in the European trade. 



The canning plant in use consists entirely of locally- 

 made articles except the processing (cooking or sterilis- 

 ing) kettles which are small autoclaves obtained from 

 Europe, that is strong vessels in which the cans are 

 heated by pressure steam — usually about 12-lb. steam — 

 generated within the vessels themselves by powerful 

 lamps or fire applied externally ; this gives a tempera- 

 ture of over 240" F. sufficient to sterilise all fish produce. 



11. Mackerel, sardines and prawns have chiefly been 

 canned, and with encouraging success for a first season ; 

 in some experiments the success has been marked and 

 even complete but in others only partial ; the goods 

 have continuously been examined, tested and tasted. 

 Insuccess has chiefly been due to {a) the inferior oils 

 obtainable in India ; inferior, that is, for canning 

 purposes ; {b) to inexperience in condimental additions ; 

 \c) to inappropriate methods or periods of salting, drying, 

 or cooking ; {d) to the inexperience of the soldering 

 staff in hermetically and rapidly sealing tins full of oil, 

 brine, etc. Many of the difficulties will probably be sur- 

 mounted by the enquiries now being made in Great 

 Britain, etc. ; all will gradually yield to experience. 

 But general success has already been sufficient to warrant 

 the expectation of teaching students and the publication 

 of methods and recipes, by the end of next season, even 

 though the products do not attain the excellence begotten 

 of many years' experience. In a former report allusion 

 was made to the fact that even in the United States several 

 years of experiment by the experts of that inventive and 

 highly-educated country were admittedly needed before 

 the canning of their "sardines" was successful; the 

 present advertisement of a well-known British brand 

 states that ten years were given to the perfecting of that 

 sino-le brand, hence success in o-eneral canningr cannot at 

 once be obtained in India with many new conditions to 

 face. The last season's experience has both trained the 

 staff and indicated our probable methods and recipes, 

 our mistakes and difficulties ; it only remains to win 

 through. 



12. It has, so far, been found impossible to procure 

 a trained canning expert, none is available at Mahe and 

 M. Josselin, the French canning expert of that place, 



