PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 129 
MILD CURING. 
The beginning of the business of mild-curing salmon, or ‘‘sweet 
pickling,” as it is sometimes called, is of comparatively recent date. 
In 1889 a German dealer came to the Columbia River and tried to 
interest some of the cannery men in the business. J. O. Hanthorn, 
M. J. Kinney, and J. W. Cook were persuaded to prepare some, and 
the plant. of the Northwest Cold Storage Co., at Portland, was used to 
keep the fish at a low temperature during repacking and preparation 
for shipment. These fish were shipped to Germany, but the shippers 
received no financial returns, word coming back that the fish were not 
satisfactory. 
Owing to this lack of success from the first effort, no further attempt 
was made until 1894, when Mueller & Loring, of Chicago, put up a car- 
load of mild-cured salmon at Kalama, Wash., and shipped it to Ger- 
many. In 1896 Charles Ruckles and Wallace Bros., of Kalama, 
packed several carloads for the German market. It was not until 
1898 that the business was permanently established on the Columbia, 
the Trescott Packing Co. and S. Schmidt & Sons putting up plants 
at Warrenton and Astoria, respectively. 
In 1900 the Trescott Packing Co. began packing the spring and fall 
runs, and the Sacramento River Packers’ eee acked the fall 
run, on the Sacramento River, the business being carried on here every 
year since. 
In 1901 the Sacramento River Packers’ Association began at Mon- 
terey the mild curing of the spring salmon that were taken with hook 
and line in the open ocean. 
S. Elmore & Co. started the industry in 1902 at Tillamook, and the 
business began on Puget Sound in 1901, when the San Juan Fishing 
& Packing Co. and the Seattle Fish Co. took it up. The Pacific Cold 
Storage Co. began the next year at Anacortes. 
Prior to 1906 several of the Alaska cannery men put up each season 
a few tierces of mild-cured salmon, but it was not until this time that 
the industry really began assuch. In that year J. Lindenberger (Inc.) 
started packing at Ketchikan, Alaska. The following year several 
other plants were started, and in 1910 almost all of the king salmon 
taken in southeast Alaska were mild cured. The same is true to-day. 
For mild curing the fresh fish must be given greater care in han- 
dling than is the case with any other process. Care must be exercised 
to see that the flesh of the fish is not bruised or broken, and in order 
to make sure of this the handlers usually pack several fish in one 
box, with cracked ice over and around them if the weather is warm. 
As soon as a box is filled, it is put in the hold, where the boxes are 
stacked one upon another, but prevent more weight than is repre- 
sented inside one box coming upon any one fish. 
In dressing, the head is removed, care being taken to leave as much 
of the bony structure of the head as possible to assist in holding the 
side of the hooks when it is being smoked later on; the fish is then 
split down the belly to the vent, the entrails removed, when a cut is 
made on either side of the blood clot in the back, and the fish passed 
to the ‘‘washer,”’ who holds the fish on its back in a slot on the 
table under a spray of water, and removes the membrane of skin 
which covers the inside of the backbone and inside of which a good 
11312°—21 9 
