CALIFORNIA FISH AND GAME. 
this season, and the usual number of 
black-spotted trout fry will be distributed 
in the streams tributary to Lake Tahoe 
from the Mt. Tallac and Tahoe City 
hatcheries. Consignments of black-spotted 
eges for distribution in other sections of 
the state will also be shipped from Mt. 
Tallac Hatchery to Mt. Shasta and Mt. 
Whitney hatcheries. 
LADDERS AND SCREENS. 
Reports have been received to the effect 
that a fish ladder has been installed over 
the Huseman Dam, the property of the 
Lucerne Water Company, near Granada, 
Siskiyou County. This is one of the 
dams for which plans and specifications 
for a fish ladder were furnished during 
the early spring months. It has also 
been reported that an open cut, to enable 
fish to pass the dam, has been constructed 
in the Spaulding Dam in Little Shasta 
River, Siskiyou County. This dam is the 
property of the Spaulding Mill. 
Reports from Shasta, Tehama, Modoc 
and San Bernardino counties indicate 
that screens are being installed in a great 
many irrigating power ditches and canals, 
in accordance with our _ instructions. 
Screen surveys were recently made in 
149 
Lake County, and we have been assured 
that the screens will be installed as soon 
as materials can be obtained for their 
eonstruction. Among the more important 
automatic cleaning screens recently in- 
stalled are those of: Bert Hampton, near 
Mineral, Tehama County; R. W. Haynes, 
Burney, Shasta County; R. L. Johnston, 
Montgomery Creek, Shasta County; P. 
Bertagna, Montgomery Creek, Shasta 
County; Pacific Improvement Company, 
Castle Crags, Shasta County; W. L. 
Williams, Chromite, Shasta County; and 
Mrs. R. McKay, “Red Bluff, Tehama 
County. The work on the large screens 
for the Stanford University Vina Ranch 
in Tehama County is being rushed, and 
within a very short time these screens 
should be ready for installation. The 
largest rotary screen ever constructed in 
the state was completed about a month 
ago. It was installed by the Anderson- 
Cottonwood Irrigation District at the in- 
take of their canal, near Anderson, Shasta 
County. The screen is in three sections, 
each 9 feet wide by 12 feet 5 inches in 
diameter, and is of the southern Cali- 
fornia Hdison type. A recent inspection 
was made of this screen, and it was found 
to be working perfectly. 
COMMERCIAL FISHERY NOTES. 
N. B. SCOFIELD, Editor. 
KELP AND POTASH MANUFACTURE. 
During the year 1917 the following kelp 
companies operated in California : 
Diamond Mateh Company 
Hercules Powder Company 
Lorned Manufacturing Company 
Pacific Products Company 
Occidental Chemical Company 
San Diego Kelp Ash Company_ 
Sea Products Company — 
Swift & Company Kelp Works 
Besides these companies several outfits 
known as “handpickers” operated along 
the southern California coast. Their 
method of operation is to go out in boats 
and cut the kelp by hand and pull it in 
over the side of the boat or load it into 
small barges. The kelp is then taken 
ashore where it is scattered on the grass 
to dry. When it is sufficiently dried it is 
burned in an open kiln. The resulting 
ash is sacked and sold to the larger com- 
panies who refine it to extract the potash 
and other salts and by-products, or else 
it is shipped direct to refineries in the 
eastern United States. It takes twenty 
tons of wet kelp to make one ton of ash 
and the ash contains between eight and 
ten per cent of pure potash. 
A few of the larger companies and the 
United States experimental plant at Sum- 
merland have chemists and chemical 
engineers employed who are endeavoring 
to devise more economical means of ex- 
tracting the potash salts as well as 
developing by-products; the object being 
to make it profitable to continue the oper- 
ation of the plants when the price of 
potash shrinks to near what it was be- 
fore the war. So far the best results in 
the way of developing by-products are be- 
ing obtained in the fermentation process 
