CANNING SARDINES VAs 
which discharge upon the cutting tables. In some plants the fish 
are scaled again after being cut. 
Cutting. Cutting is done largely by hand. In San Pedro all this 
work is done by Japanese women. Some plants have recently 
started to use machines that are fed by hand." 
The cutting operation by hand is carried out as follows: The fish 
is held, belly down, on the cutting board. One cut with a sharp 
knife is made almost through the body, well back from the head. 
A sidewise motion with the knife then tears the head portion from 
the fish, pulls out the entrails, and forces all refuse through a hole in 
the table. At the same time the other hand drops the ‘‘cut”’ fish 
into a bucket. The cutters do all this so rapidly that one can hardly 

Fic. 3.. Hand cutting. The fish from the holding tanks are flumed to tables as needed 
see what they really are doing. The refuse from this operation 
goes to the by-products plant, where the oil is removed and the 
residue made into fish meal. 
Brining.—In California large pilchards for the pound-oval pack 
are usually brined 60 to 90 minutes in 85 to 100 per cent saturated 
solutions of common salt (NaCl). Small fish for the quarter-oil 
pack are kept from 10 to 30 minutes in 40 to 80 per cent saturated 
brine. Each canner has his own preferences, and in the end each 
accomplishes more or less the same result. In general, the stronger 
the solution, and also the smaller the fish, the shorter the time 
needed for them to take up a given amount of salt. The real purpose 
of brining is to salt the fish. This step at times is omitted when the 
fish are canned in a watery sauce such as tomato, mustard, or vine- 

11 Machines are described in U. S. Patents No. 1544986, July 7, 1925, and No. 1599807, Sept. 14, 1926. 
