596 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
by-products serve just as great an amount of good as the actual food? 
Should all the fisheries, then, be reserved solely for the use of food, 
if they can be so reserved? 
Mr. Tuomeson. Edible fats would reach the people in the form of 
fish; but to take one-tenth of the value of a fish, when you might 
possibly build up the use of the whole fish, I think would he a 
mistake. 
Mr. Scorterp. We have one factor in California that is operating 
under a modification of the law which certain persons were able to 
bring about. They are making fish flour. The process is not very 
different from an ordinary reduction that is carried on in an ordi- 
nary reduction plant. The fish are run through by machinery. Then 
the product is ground and run through the mill, and the final product 
is fish flour. It is not much more expensive to produce than ordinary 
fish meal. About three-fifths or two-fifths of the product is bone and 
gross material which goes as fertilizer, anyway. 
The law was also modified to permit the use of sardines for the 
oil, provided the oil be used for edible purposes. The company 
extracting the oil must refine it for use as human food. Two rather 
large concerns made use of that modification last year. 
It seems to me that if the companies are permitted to take the sardine 
for the oil and use the oil as a food there will be no limit to their 
activities. It would be the same thing as permitting a reduction 
industry to take fish for fish meal or fertilizer; so we hope to have 
striken from the law the special privilege of taking fish to make oil. 
If the supply is exhaustible (and we are not sure that it is not), I 
think our scheme should be to guard against the establishment of a 
reduction industry, and should be in favor of the use of the sardine 
or herring as human food. The use of the sardine, at least for can- 
ning, gives employment to a great many more people than if it were 
used solely for reduction purposes. As Mr. Thompson pointed out, 
the great danger is in permitting a great industry to be established 
which we will be unable later to curtail or to put out of business when 
we find that the resource that is being drawn up is not sufficient. 
Mr. Hicerns. Captain Wallace, what is your idea on this subject 
with reference to menhaden ? 
Captain Watuace. The menhaden is not a food fish. It is used 
only for making fertilizer. There is this viewpoint in the manufac- 
ture of a fish like the menhaden into oil and fertilizer: There is 
being given to the country something that otherwise would not be 
utilized. The fertilizer that is being used on the farm is also of 
economic good to the country in rendering the land more productive. 
Doctor Gautsorr. I would like to ask a few questions about your 
paper, Mr. Higgins. It seems to me one important thing was missed 
entirely. I understand perfectly the fundamental ideas which show 
the necessity of statistical work, but it seems to me the statistics are 
sound only if we have a good biological understanding of these partic- 
ular species. That is true for every type of biological work. Mathe- 
matics is all right, but there must be some biological background to. 
which to apply the mathematical formulas. In a general way, the 
understanding of the biological background requires a perfect under- 
standing of the organism—the understanding of its environment and. 
