174 U- S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



On December 31, 1937, Mr. Salter resigned from the Bureau to 

 accept employment as a cooperative specialist with the Tennessee 

 Valley Authority, Knoxville, Tenn. 



TECHNOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS 



Improvement of quality and increase in economic value of the prod- 

 ucts of our fishery industries constitute the goal toward which our 

 technological investigations are directed and are constantly striving. 

 The most modern tools of the various applied sciences are used in 

 accomplishing these practical ends. This is conservation of a natural 

 resource in its broadest and most effective meaning. For instance, 

 it is comparable to the efforts of agricultural science in aiding farmers 

 to make the most complete and valuable use of corn and cornstalks. 

 In recent years much has been heard of a movement among scientists, 

 known as the farm chemurgic. In a ]3ractical sense, this means teach- 

 ing the farmer to direct the surplus products of his land, after food 

 requirements have been met, to the factory as a source of supply of 

 raw materials in the manufacture of mdustrial or nonfood products. 

 In other words, the purpose of this movement is to bring agriculture 

 and industry closer together and to make the farm a source for indus- 

 trial raw materials. Likewise, fishery technology is serving not only 

 to make more types of food available from the sea, but also is serving 

 as the "sea chemurgic" to the "fishers of the sea," in teaching them 

 to make valuable industrial commodities from fishery products, after 

 primary food requirements have been met. 



While our fishery technological studies have been of great value to 

 the domestic fishery industries in increasing productive capacity and 

 creating new wealth for the American people, their value to our domes- 

 tic economy does not end there, for other American industries also are 

 making great use of the results of our technological work. Many of 

 these latter industries are consumers of raw materials produced by 

 American fisheries and they follow our investigations very closely. At 

 times, some have sent their technicians to our field and Washington 

 laboratories where they have conferred with our technologists to keep 

 abreast of the latest research developments. Following these con- 

 tacts, some of these industries have applied the results of our researches 

 to the manufacture of their products. 



For instance, in 1919, the Bureau of Fisheries pioneered in the devel- 

 opment in this country of quick-freezing methods in the preservation 

 of a food product and has continued researches in the frozen food field 

 ever since. Other food industries have been quick to grasp the sig- 

 nificance of this work and now the quick-freezing of fruits, vegetables, 

 and meats has become one of our major industries. 



In another instance, the Bureau pioneered in searches for new 

 sources of vitamins A and D and found that the oil from the livers of 

 many species of fish are potent in these vitamins. Heretofore, only 

 the livers of cod were thought to be useful for this purpose. The drug 

 industry took advantage of this work and now produces many thou- 

 sands of gallons of oil high in vitamins A and D from fish livers and 

 fish viscera which formerly were discarded by the fishermen at sea. 

 Likewise, our researches on the value of fish meal for feeding domestic 

 animals have been of great value to the feed industry of this country. 



