ECONOMICS OF THE FISHERIES 361 



in cost and with technical methods now available, the vast resources of the 

 sea, except those which pay their way with oil or human edible portions, 

 are economically beyond reach for fertilizer and animal nutrition. 



In small communities the fisheries are probably again at a disadvantage 

 in competition with big centers like Boston. Fish meal manufacture is a 

 low-price large-volume operation; no satisfactory process has been developed 

 for making it economically on a small scale. ^^ Though the present outlook 

 does not seem very favorable, it is perhaps not hopeless that much needed 

 small and inexpensive plants for converting residues from filleting, trash 

 fish, etc., into fish meal may be established in small fishing communities, 

 where the labor would be of the nature of self-employment by fishermen and 

 their families. 



Concentration of Manufacture in Few Species and Places, The data 

 summarized briefly in this section on manufacture clearly show that of the 

 two hundred or more commercial species of fishes produced along the ap- 

 proximately 10,000 miles of general coastline of continental United States 

 and the southern coast of Alaska, by far the greater part of manufacture 

 is based on a very small number of species or varieties. Of the canned fish, 

 92 per cent of the value of product in 1940 was made up of salmons, tunas, 

 sardines, shrimp, mackerel, and clams; of the frozen fish and fillets two- 

 thirds of the total was in eight trade varieties; of fish meal, 88 per cent was 

 made up of five trade varieties, and of fertilizer 96 per cent was menhaden, 

 and in oils, both body and liver, a small list of fishes yield the greater part. 

 In each of these manufactures a long list of minor and "other" varieties 

 taken together contribute a small part of the total. Also it is well known 

 that the great bulk of the manufacture (detailed data not available) is done 

 in a few cities or fishing centers — Boston, Gloucester, Seattle, San Fran- 

 cisco, Monterey, San Pedro, and a few others. The products are manufac- 

 tured from the species which are in large enough volume and steady enough 

 supply to justify investment of capital and employment of labor and support 

 wide enough distribution to build public familiarity and demand; and the 

 work is done in places where this supply is landed, facilities, skilled labor 

 and transportaton are all available, and where the raw material accumulates 

 for the manufacture of by-products. 



'^Mother" Ships, Manufacturing, and Processing at Sea. The fisheries of 

 the United States and, indeed, of all other countries are prosecuted in fresh 

 water and around the fringes of the land as near to consuming markets as 

 costs of production permit, but even the near-by ocean fisheries are situated 

 at a disadvantage in competition with agriculture, a disadvantage which 



29. A home-made apparatus with process of operation requiring much hand labor has been 

 described by the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission (1945) ; it is doubtful that this tech- 

 nique would be practicable in North Carolina. 



