69 



exports of fish-oil are not included, since there is a large 

 export of country-made fish-oil which is not yet distin- 

 guished in the accounts. By the courtesy of the Customs 

 Department export accounts will in future distinguish 

 "fish-oil, boiled," and "fish-guano" as items separate 

 from " fish-oil" (which includes a lot of oil prepared by 

 the old methods in various parts of the coast including 

 Travancore and Cochin) and " fish-manure," by which is 

 understood the sardine manure dried on the beach. 



The absence of oil in the masses of sardines, especi- 

 ally on the South Malabar Coast, led to very heavy 

 operations in drying sardines in the usual fashion on the 

 beach. The wastefulness of this method in valuable 

 constituents owing to the putrefactive loss of nitrogen, 

 etc., has often been mentioned, but may be gauged by 

 the following printed prices quoted by a large firm dealing 

 with estates, viz. : — 



Rs. per ton 

 bagged f.o.r. 



(i) Fish-guano, guaranteed, 8—9 percent N, and [oo 



7 — 8 per cent phosphoric acid, 



(2) Milled fish, 5 — 6 per cent N, and 4 — 5 percent 55 



phosphoric acid. 



(3) Vish-vnaxwxxt (jio giiaranfec) ... ... ... 40 



No. (3) is the ordinary manure obtained by drying 

 fish on the sand and necessarily contains much adhering 

 sand which partly accounts for its low price. Since five 

 tons of fresh fish boil and dry into 1 ton of guano or dry 

 to about i^^ tons of beach-dried fish, the gain both in 

 money and in nitrogen is obvious, while the whole of the 

 oil, much or little, is an additional asset. 



8. The absence of the oil in the fish and the poor 

 prices given for beach-dried fish led me on returning to 

 Tanur to consider methods of drying lean fish without 

 boiling them. Two methods were adopted, viz. [a) that 

 of light and brief salting followed by sun-drying, and [d) 

 that of artificial drying. In both cases the object is to 

 avoid the loss caused by several days' drying, without 

 salt on the beach, where putrefaction, loss by soakage, 

 birds, insects, etc., cause great loss of nitrogen and of 

 actual material, besides being a nuisance to the public ; 

 further and great loss is often caused by rain on the 

 drying material. When the fish are even lightly salted 

 and then dried not only is putrefaction entirely prevented 

 but the tissues are hardened so that there is less breakasfe 



