358 MARINE FISHERIES OF NORTH CAROLINA 



natural sources to chemical synthesis. Announcement was recently made-^ 

 of the synthesis of vitamin A and the beginning of a pilot plant for com- 

 mercial manufacture. It is therefore not safe to assume that the fish industry 

 has a permanent monopoly on vitamin A. Indeed, with the accelerating ad- 

 vance of the arts of chemical synthesis the days of many natural products in 

 commerce may well be numbered. 



The average U. S. production of fish body oil for the four years, 1940-43, 

 inclusive, was 22,769,699 gallons of fish body oils (inclusive of menhaden, 

 but exclusive of whale and seal), valued at $12,009,689, vitamin liver oils 

 969,157 gallons valued at $11,209,154. The total of all oils was worth 

 $23,218,843. Those manufactured oils were in value equal to about 17 

 per cent of the total value of whole finfish caught in 1943. 



The statistical position of fish meal, fertilizer and oil manufacture in the 

 United States in 1940 is shown in Table 62, Appendix. 



Fish Meal and Fertilizer. The menhaden is used solely for the manufac- 

 ture of fish meal, fertilizer and oil; a large part of the catch of Pacific Coast 

 pilchard or sardines, and some part of the Alaska and North Atlantic herring 

 are used whole for the same purpose, and in large centers of filleting and 

 canning, the residues are used for manufacture of fish meal (and oil from 

 the residues of fatty fishes). 



The main use of fish meal is as a protein supplement (5 to 10 per cent) 

 to cereals as chicken feed. Much careful scientific work has been done on 

 the rations of chickens. Table 10 presents (hitherto unpublished) data 

 supplied by. and published here by permission of. Dr. R. M. Bethke of 

 Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station, comparing the nutritive values of 

 various protein supplements, when fed at the same level of protein content 

 of the whole feed. The results are expressed in grain feed consumed per gram 

 of growth of chicks to eight weeks old, and the percentage of mortality. 



In the United States there is strong demand for fish meal; in the world 

 as a whole the demand may well continue for all that can be produced 

 economically because of the relatively small amount (5-10 per cent) re- 

 quired to supplement cereal ration for production of poultry, meat and eggs 

 where, as in human foods, protein is the scarcest fraction. Yet, as in vitamin 

 A, we cannot take for granted a monopoly in any market. Recent (1948) 

 discovery and isolation of the cobalt-containing "animal protein factor" 



27. Cawley, J. D., C. D. Robeson, L. Weisler, E. M. Shantz, M. D. Embree, and J. D. Baxter. 

 Crystalline Synthetic Vitamin A. Paper presented at the Section on Enzymes, Hormones and 

 Vitamins, New York meeting of the American Chemical Society. Sept. 15, 1947. See also Chem. 

 & Eng. News, Vol. 27, 1949, p. 2106; Helvetica Chemica Acta, Vol. 32, 1949, p. 443-452. Dis- 

 tillation Products, Inc., began production of vitamin A in_i94S, and in Drug & Allied Industries, 

 Vol. 36, No. 2, February, 1950, full scale commercial production was announced by Hoffman- 

 LaRoche, Inc.; and small scale commercial production with full scale in the near future by 

 Charles Pfizer & Co., and by Merck & Company. 



