I02 



complaints — almost the only ones — that orders were not 

 complied with (from temporary lack of stock), there is 

 obviously a large unsatisfied market for pure and cheap 

 goods manufactured on a commercial and not on an 

 experimental scale. 



During the year the new cannery at Beypore was 

 put up ; this provides good accommodation for canning, 

 refrigeration and other preserving processes and for 

 storage. The new canning plant produces solid-drawn 

 cans, the bodies of which are struck by a drawing press 

 from the i\at ; the covers are secured to the body by 

 " double seaming," the flanges of the body and cover 

 being jointly turned over with the interpositioti of a 

 composition band between them ; this makes an air-tight 

 joint. It will be noticed that this method produces a 

 can which is not only free from solder, but has only 

 one seam instead of ttiree as in the ordinary soldered 

 can hence much less chance of spoilage. Moreover, 

 the cans can be struck as fast as the press will work, 

 and 50 perfect bodies have been struck in five minutes ; 

 this immensely increases the potential output, and the 

 cannery will no longer be limited by the capacity of its 

 sclderers who seldom solder more than 150 cans each 

 per day. The new cannery was not actually at work 

 during the year. 



It has been proved during the year that sardines in 

 oil are all the better for long storage ; cans of 1913 gave 

 excellent gustatory results. Moreover, the oil used 

 matters the less as the age increases, since the blended 

 flavour of fish, oil and spice covers up any characteristic 

 flavour of the oil ; refined cotton seed-oil gave as good 

 results as olive oil, while sardines in fine sardine-oil were 

 generally preferred to any as being richer in flavour. 



Experiments were recently tried with the greatest 

 success in preventing the slight discoloration of prawns 

 when canned ; the new method, not yet in practical use, 

 involves some technical difficulties as regards the con- 

 tainer and slight extra cost but this can be got over ; the 

 fish under experiment completely preserved their natural 

 brilliance of colour. 



9. Refr-igeratioii. — Owing to delays in building and 

 the want of refrigerating experts, the new plant for fish- 

 freezing after the Henderson method (see previous 



