6 REPORTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OE COMMERCE. 



with Federal and State food administration representatives and other 

 governmental agencies, with producers, with the trade, with civic 

 organizations, and with other elements of the population. By lec- 

 tures and practical demonstrations it has sho^vn directly to some fif- 

 teen thousand housewives the value of fish as food and the best and 

 most economical methods of preparing it for the table, and in this way 

 it has been enabled to show the merits of many of the little-used or 

 neglected fishes which are fully the equal of more valued species, 

 thereby increasing the fisheries and the markets for such forms at a 

 time wnen they were needed most. It has augumented materially the 

 saving and use of waste products of the fisheries, as, for example, the 

 conversion of fish waste and waste fish into oil and fish scrap for ferti- 

 lizer or fish meal as an animal feed, and the making of leather from the 

 skins of aquatic animals. New or foreign methods of preservation 

 have been introduced and wasteful practices have been discouraged. 

 Investigations of the basic principles governing the methods of preser- 

 vation of fishery products, for which there is a long-felt want, have 

 been initiated and are yielding important results. A fishery-products 

 laboratoiy in which such investigations can be continued under accu- 

 rately controlled conditions has been built and equipped, and a tem- 

 porary experimental field laboratory has been placed in operation. 



The Bureau has also given greater attention to the collection of 

 fishery statistics, which afford the only available, reliable basis for 

 determining the condition and trend of the commercial fisheries of 

 the country, serve as a guide for the enactment of necessary protec- 

 tive legislation, and indicate the need for and results of fish-cultural 

 operations. The monthly returns of the quantities and values of the 

 fish landed at Boston and Gloucester, Mass. ; Portland, Me. ; and Seat- 

 tle, Wash., by American and Canadian vessels have been submitted 

 by local agents and published as monthly and annual bulletins for the 

 use of the trade. A statistical canvass of the fisheries of the Great 

 Lakes, together with Lake of the Woods, Rainy Lake, and Lakes 

 Kabetogama and La Croix, was made during the year, and a special 

 bulletin on the subject was issued. In addition, there have been 

 initiated and are nearing completion a comprehensive canvass of the 

 fisheries of the South Atlantic and Gulf States for the calendar year 

 1918, and canvasses of the shad and river-herring fisheries of the Poto- 

 mac River and of the shad fishery of the Hudson River for the calen- 

 dar year 1919. 



Plans are being developed for taking statistical canvasses with 

 sufficient frequency to include all of the major geographical divisions 

 of the fisheries once in a five-year period. To complete this work 

 satisfactorily and take up such special canvasses as are required from 

 time to time will require a somewhat larger force of statistical agents 

 and clerks. 



INCREASING PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS. 



The Bureau has encouraged west-coast whaling companies to save 

 and market whale meat for food and has rendered effective assistance 

 in bringing the merits of whale meat to the attention of consumers. 

 In 1918, 30,000 cases of the meat were canned and 195 tons were frozen 

 for market, the latter being utterly inadequate to supply the demand. 

 Equipment has now been provided for an output of 50,000 cases of 



