Dec. t, 1BS6.] 



tHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



id 



FISH-CUBING IN CEYLON. 



Dried salt-fish, known popularly as " Karawala," 

 forms so large a portion of the food of the in- 

 habitants of Ceylon, and especially of the immigrant 

 Tamil coolies, and disease, including even leprosy, 

 has so often been traced to the use of this article 

 of food in a putrid or semi-putrid state, that all 

 who have given attention to the question must have 

 rejoiced when the Ceylon Qovernment, following 

 the example of the authorities in the Madras Pre- 

 sidency, determined on measures calculated to ex- 

 pand and improve the local industry. This they 

 have done by commencing to open fish-curing yards, 

 Buch as have been generally so successful in South 

 India, and supplying salt for use in such yards 

 at the moderate price of Rl per cwt., so low indeed 

 as 80 cents at Hambantota, These yards are pro- 

 perly protected and supplied with guards by Govern- 

 ment, so that the native fishermen who choose to 

 i<vail themselves of the advantages offered, not 

 only obtain good clean salt at a low price, but 

 are saved the trouble and expense of watching the 

 fish which, after cleaning they spread out to dry. 

 In Ceylon as in India, one great cause of the 

 inferiority of salt-fish sent into the markets for 

 sale, (next to imperfect salting, often with salt mud 

 merely) is the practice of drying the fish on the sea- 

 shore sand. It is inevitable under this system 

 that a very considerable proportion of sand should 

 get into the substance of the fish or adhere to 

 it, and so large is this proportion sometimes that 

 the price even of putrid or inferior fish used for 

 manurial purposes, has been regulated by the ex- 

 tent to which it has been freed from sand. 

 In the Government curing yards the salted-fish 

 is dried on wicker platforms. Where forest or 

 scrub is plentiful, we would suggest that the ex- 

 periment of smoking some of the fish, after the 

 fashion of Scotch speldings or "Finnan haddocks" 

 should be tried. We do not know if the Europeans 

 who recently engaged in the fish-curing enterprise 

 in Ceylon tried any experiments in the direction 

 of smoking or " kippering." In any case, the 

 dried fish they sent into the market was exceptionally 

 clean and well cured, and, although we are not 

 surprized to learn that in a pure y native industry 

 like this, Europeans have not been successful com- 

 petitors with the indigenous fishermen, we greatly 

 regret the result. Our readers must understand 

 that our Government in taking measures to en- 

 courage and extend the local fish-curing industry, 

 must have contemplated a considerable sacrifice of 

 revenue. The more dried fish is locally produced, 

 the less will be the import duty collected on the, at 

 present, very large quantity of salt-fish intro- 

 duced from Southern India, destined largely, like 

 our imports of rice, to feed the coolies who 

 come to us from the same quarter. A duty on 

 salt-fish, although the latter is a staple article 

 of native food, has always been deemed necessary 

 as to a certain extent a protection to the local 

 revenue derived from salt, the quantity of salt 

 in the imported fish as well as in that locally 

 prepared being calculated in estimating the con- 

 sumption of salt (from I'i lb. to ICi lb. per caput,) by 

 the inhabitants of Ceylon. Besides loss of revenue 

 in the direction indicated, Government sell salt 

 for fish curing purposes at less than half the 

 monopoly price, and the yards, supplied by Govern- 

 ment with supprintendeuts and watcliers, are not 

 yet and probahly will not for some time be self- 

 Bupportiiig. iUit this (rovernment, like that of 

 •If.! 



Madras, is clearly acting not merely in the spirit 

 of paternal benevolence, but in the line of positive 

 duty in taking measures to improve and expand 

 a local industry, whereby the seas around our 

 shores shall be made to yield increased supplies 

 in a wholesome shape of a species of food speci- 

 ally grateful to the natives, as giving body as 

 well as piquancy to their curries, so largely com- 

 posed of succulent vegetables in addition to the 

 unfailing and absorbent staple, rice. The quantity of 

 salt used in proportion to the fish cured, varies widely 

 and any large excess above well-established averages, 

 such as has occurred at some of the Ceylon curing 

 yards, demafids and will receive enquiry, so that 

 the abuse of the privilege of obtaining cheap salt 

 for a specific purpose may not be allowed. The 

 following table shews the results, so far, of the 

 fishing-curing experiment in Government yards, in 

 the face of the inevitable suspicions of the natives 

 that the whole scheme was merely a device to 

 impose upon them additional taxation : — 



The foUowiug abstract shows the results of the 

 establishment of the yards in which work was car- 

 ried on during the period from October 15th, 1885, 

 to July a 1st. 188(5 :— 







. , >> 



* g 5 > 



« 5 " = 



S a> 



S 



K 



^ M J! W 



> V2 



O— 3 



CC -H <M 

 -# I-- O 



lO •-* ^ 



lo tr ro 

 'n -9 '>* 





.J »c fC 



> O 



■,r. 51-^^ 



225 ^ 



n -* o 



o 



CO 



Ci 



■J. 



CO 



02 



00 Oi 



e.H , Tj <W »- 



O:^ = £ « 



•■B.O = >. 



o O 





CO I" -* 





.♦-cc — 

 : CO 3 

 :iO-"-» 







S -" o --c 2 J o --D 2 . " 



^ 'Z> ^^ -^ f-\ ^ '^ 

 — ' '^ » tC »o . ■ 

 'iJ j2 J3 -I 7: <N *- ■ 



■= ^ 4? f 



^» 



O P. 



y. 



a s. 





3 

 □. 

 O. 





s ch -;r 



Our readers will, of course understand that the 

 discrepancy between fish received into the yards 

 and fish taken out arises from the removal of olfal 

 and especially from the drying away of most of the 

 moisture in the "Karauala." Thn figmcs show 

 only 2, ;')()! cwt. of fish taken out for •i.syO taken in. 

 The difference would be still greater, but for the 



