REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF FISHERIES. 29 
could be continued without interruption. Congress has provided an 
appropriation for the erection of a fireproof building to replace the 
original building, which was of frame construction. At the close of 
the fiscal year plans for the new laboratory were nearing completion. 
RELATIONS WITH THE FISHING INDUSTRIES. 
INCREASING THE CONSUMPTION OF AQUATIC FOODS. 
It is possible to record more active and effective work than in any 
previous year in making the American people better acquainted with 
the merits and availability of our aquatic resources as food and in 
pointing out sources of supply. This work has assumed a wide scope 
and many phases, but the primal effort and purpose have been to in- 
crease public reliance on such resources as staple articles of food, to 
dissipate unwarranted prejudices, and to cause the discontinuance of 
wasteful practices in the utilization of water products. 
The Bureau is fully cognizant of the important service it can and 
should render the fishing industries, by determining and making 
known the suitability of many of our fishes to new and untried 
methods of preservation; by sending trained experts to the fishing 
centers to give instruction in those methods which prove meritori- 
ous; by improving methods in common practice and discouraging the 
use of unsatisfactory methods; by introducing into our fisheries use- 
ful foreign methods and processes; by increasing the use of the little- 
used or neglected fishes and fishery products; by developing methods 
of preparation and new uses for the waste products of the fisheries; 
by furnishing to fishermen and others practical advice relative to 
special equipment required for new methods and processes that may 
be in contemplation; and by contributing by all available means to 
the upbuilding of the fisheries, while at the same time safeguarding 
these resources from possible depletion or exhaustion. 
During the past year the demands on the fishing resources of the 
country have been of such magnitude that the Bureau has found an 
unprecedented opportunity for rendering service in the field of en- 
deavor before outlined. It has devoted all possible energies to the 
solution of those problems which promised the largest and most im- 
mediate results, and has diverted men and funds to work of this 
character in so far as it was possible so to do. The small available 
force of trained assistants has been the principal factor in limiting 
the activities. The meager funds allowed by Congress for this work 
have been supplemented by the special allotment elsewhere referred to. 
Aid has been rendered in developing markets for such inadequately 
used or partly neglected fishes as the herring of Alaska, bowfin, bur- 
bot, carp, crevalles, drum, elops, eulachon, grayfish, gizzard shad, 
jewfish, menhaden, rays, redfish, river herrings, robalo, rockfishes, 
sablefish, sea catfishes, sea robins, sharks, skates, tarpon, and tilefish; 
such aquatic mammals as dolphins, porpoises, and whales; and such 
neglected food products as fish roe and milt. For some species the 
Bureau has developed new and suitable methods of preservation, dis- 
couraged the practice of unprofitable methods, and assisted in solv- 
ing difficulties which were obstructive to the full use of the product. 
One of the agents has devoted his entire time to a study of prac- 
tical problems of the west-coast fisheries. This work has been pro- 
160695°—20——3 
