270 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Before the development of the sardine industry in Maine, the small 

 fish taken in connection with the smoked-herring business were com- 

 monly converted into oil and fertilizer. After the oil had been 

 extracted by boiling and pressing, tlie chum was broken up, spread 

 on a board platform, and dried by the action of the sun. It was then 

 ground, bagged, and sold at 112 to 116 per ton. 



About fifteen years ago a factory was established at Pillar Point, 

 on the shore of Lake Ontario, for converting the surplus alewives 

 occurring in that lake into fertilizer. The fish, obtained by means of 

 seines and jjound nets, were cooked for about 20 minutes in steam 

 chests, permitted to drain for an hour, and then subjected to pressure 

 in circular curbs holding about 5 barrels of elium each. The scrap was 

 dried and ground and sold to the farmers for about $20 to $25 per ton. 

 It is reported that in 1886 1,000,000 fish were utilized, yielding 500 

 gallons of oil and 63 tons of fertilizer. Along the shores of the Great 

 Lakes and other waters, quantities of dead fish have been washed up 

 in windrows, furnishing a harvest for the farmers in the vicinity. 



In the pound-net fisheries of Cape Cod many skates and other 

 " poor" fisli, taken incidentally with the food-fish, are converted into 

 fertilizer. If these contain much oil, it may be extracted by boiling 

 and pressing. Ordinarily, however, the fish are dried without pre- 

 vious treatment. Esjjecially is this the case with skates, which in 

 some instances are suspended in rows above the ground until thor- 

 oughly dry, and are then ground fine. A large quantity of these fish 

 hanging from a series of flakes or rails presents a very curious sight. 



The quantity of waste and sj)oiled fish, however, is small compared 

 with tlie very large amount of viscera and other offal resulting from 

 dressing fish. The decrease in weight in dressing ranges from 15 to 

 35 per cent of the round weight, according to the species of fish and 

 the season of the year. Assuming an average decrease of 25 per 

 cent, it appears that in dressing the 900,000,000 pounds of food-fish 

 produced in the United States each year the refuse amounts to 

 225,000,000 pounds, or 1 12,500 tons. While this is a very large amount 

 in the aggregate, it is so widely distributed that the quantity at any 

 one i^lace is not of great importance, and usually its disposal is a 

 sanitary problem rather than a source of revenue. In dressing fish at 

 sea the waste is almost invariablj^ thrown overboard. In the cities this 

 material is usually combined with and handled in the same way as 

 other market refuse. At the canneries where large quantities of fish 

 are dressed, as in the salmon canneries of the Pacific coast, and tlie 

 sardine canneries of Maine, the refuse is now in manj^ cases r(m- 

 dered into oil and fertilizer. This has already been noted in the 

 chapter on the preparation of oils from waste products in the fisheries, 

 (See pp. 240-242). 



In case the fish dressings contain little oil the inducements for 

 utilizing them are not great. Water constitutes a very large proj^or- 

 tion of the viscera, the (quantity ranging from 65 to 90 per cent, 



