PACIFIC SALMON FISHERIES. 141 
fish. The resulting powder, called “fish flour,” is easy to transport 
from one place to another and has great nutritive value. It is 
probable that the tailpieces of the fish, which are at present thrown 
away, and the cheaper grades of salmon might be prepared in this 
way and thus furnish another market for salmon. 
Sete diny,? MEAL, FERTILIZER, AND OIL. 
As early as 1888 there was a small plant at Astoria, Oreg., where 
the refuse of the canneries was utilized for the manufacture of oil and 
fertilizer. In that year 8,000 gallons of oil (chiefly from salmon 
heads) and 90 tons of fertilizer were prepared. The oil was worth 
224 cents per gallon and the fertilizer had a market value of $20 
er ton. Most of the refuse was dumped into the river, however. 
n 1898 a similar plant was established in the Puget Sound district 
of Washington. At present the plants of the Robinson Fisheries Co. 
at Anacortes; the Pacific American Fisheries at Eliza Island, near 
Bellingham; the Wannenwetsch Reducing Co., at Blaine; and the 
Japanese-American Fertilizer Co. on Lummi Island, all on Puget 
Sound, operate quite largely on the offal from the Sound salmon can- 
neries. 
In 1882 the Alaska Oil & Guano Co. established a fertilizer plant at 
Killisnoo, Alaska, for the extraction of oil and fertilizer from herring, 
and has operated the plant continuously ever since. In some years 
large quantities of whole salmon have been handled at this plant, 
and the resulting product was found to sell as well as that from 
herring. 
In Alaska the Fish Canners By-Products (Ltd.), in 1914 built a 
large plant at Ward Cove, near Ketchikan, where salmon offal is 
used in the preparation of fertilizer, meal, and oil. The company is 
now experimenting in the preparation of various chemical products 
from the raw material. 
Probably the most serious evil in the salmon industry to-day is the 
enormous wastage which annually occurs. About one-fourth of the 
total weight of each fish handled at the various packing plants is 
thrown away. With the exception of the tailpiece, which is «is- 
carded at some canneries owing to the excessive amount of bone 
which would be in the product if canned, this waste material could 
not be utilized as food, comprising as it does the head, viscera, fins, 
and tail. When not conveniently near the very few fertilizer plants 
at present in operation this product is either allowed to pass through 
chutes into the water under the cannery, or is dumped into scows and 
towed to the ocean or the deeper waters of the sounds, and there 
thrown overboard. This procedure is not only exceedingly wasteful, 
but is also far from beneficial to the waters where deposited. 
The great desideratum in the salmon fisheries of the Pacific coast 
at the present time is the invention of a small odorless fertilizer 
plant, costing not more than $2,500 or $3,000, which can be installed 
at the various salmon canneries and salteries. The offal from the 
cannery could there be utilized and the product obtained would 
doubtless net a fair return on such an investment, while at the same 
time the present (in the aggregate) enormous waste would be stopped, 
and the waters adjacent to the canneries rendered far more agreeable 
to the fishes as well as to the people on shore. It is absolutely essen- 
