386 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



crn States for raising cotton. Considerable is also used for raising 

 tobacco. Used to a certain extent in every State in the Union. This 

 business is prosecuted quite extensively in Narragansett Bay and Long 

 Island Sound, Ehode Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey. Com- 

 mences one raontli earlier, and lasts one to two months later in season. 

 The whole number of factories in that vicinity is about 50, but many of 

 them are small. The amount of capital invested is $1,500,000. The 

 number of barrels of fish caught is 793,100 ; amount of oil, 1,200,000 

 gallons; amount of scrap, 24,000 tons. 



Size of our factory : Main building, 130 by 40 feet, 16 feet post, having 

 two stories. The upper one is used for cooking and pressing fish; the 

 lower story for oil-room and fish-scrap. The engine-house adjoining the 

 factory is 20 by 30, 10 feet post, containing three horizontal boilers, 65 

 horsepower each. In the upper part of factory there are eleven cooking- 

 tanks made of wood, round, 12 feet in diameter and 4 feet deep, with 

 steam-pipes in the bottom, having several small holes in them to let 

 steam into these tanks. There are also three hydraulic presses, 150 

 tons pressure each, and one engine of 10 horse-power. In connection 

 with factory are two wharves, one 150 by 50, and one 40 by 80. On the 

 largest wharf is a tank set up on i^osts 10 feet high. This tank has a 

 capacity of 4,000 barrels, which we sometimes have full at night after 

 discharging all of our steamers with their day's catch. We have a 12- 

 horse engine on the wharf used for hoisting fish out of steamers ; have 

 three drums connected with engine so as to run all at one time or either 

 one we wish. We can unload one thousand barrels an hour when in full 

 blast. The fish are discharged same as coal is unloaded, and are dumped 

 into tanks on the wharf. In connection with the factory is another 

 building for the main scrap-house, 60 by 100, 15 feet post ; also black- 

 smith-shop, cooper-shop, carpenter-shop, boarding-house, stable, &c., all 

 on the premises and used in connection with the business. These cost 

 from $75,000 to $80,000, and the steamers and fishing-gear, such as seines, 

 small-boats, «&c., not less than $60,000 more. There are but two pogy 

 factories in the United States of this capacity, and are both in the town 

 of Bristol, respectively owned by Joseph Church & Co., Tiverton, E. I., 

 and L. Brightman Sons, Round Pond, Me., or Fall Kiver, Mass. Next 

 largest are those of L. Maddocks and J. G. Nickerson, in Booth Bay, 

 adjoining town, about half as extensive as the above. The others are 

 smaller. Perhaps they may average one-fourth capacity of first three. 



General process of manvfacturing, — First, the fish are landed on the 

 wharf or In tanks ; then they are conveyed to the upper story of the 

 factory in cars holding about 20 barrels, on wooden rails set upon 

 wooden horses ; then they are emptied into the cooking-tanks. Put in 

 first 6 inches of salt water, then 5Q to 75 barrels of fish, in each tank, 

 and open steam from main pipe and boil them one hour. In that way 

 two-thirds of the oil comes out of the fish. We then draw this oil and 

 water oft' below into drawing-ofif tanks for this purpose, and run it 



