HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 211 



been made by drying the fish after pressure, when it was ground and a 

 portion of gypsum mixed with it. As oflTered for sale, it was a grayish 

 powder, in which portions of bone could be distinguished. 



"Learning that a somewhat similar article had been sold and used in 

 some of the Penobscot towns, from Mr. C. G. Alden, of Camden, I 

 called upon him, and found that he had made last year, for the first 

 time, about a hundred barrels, at Long Island, in Blue Hill Bay, which 

 he sold readily at $1.50 per barrel of about 150 pounds, and learned 

 that it gave entire satisfaction. It was prepared from pogy chum by 

 simply drying it in the sun, and when packed he added a peck of gyp- 

 sum to each barrel. Some barrels were examined which had just been 

 made (August, 1861), and the article appeared to be in a good state of 

 preservation, except that it was slightly moist and gave off free ammonia. 

 Mr. Alden intimated that the lack of sufficient capital alone i^revented 

 his entering into its manufacture upon a much more extended scale. 

 He hoped, however, to prepare five hundred barrels or more the pres- 

 ent season. 



"At Eastport I found fish guano manufactured upon a larger scale. 

 Messrs. U. S. Treat & Son, well known for their enterprise, perseverance, 

 and success in the artificial propagation of fish, after preliminary trials 

 for some years past, prej^ared about one hundred and fifty tons during 

 the season of 1860, nearly the whole of which was shipped to Connect- 

 icut. He makes it under a patent held or claimed by the Quinnipiac 

 Company of Connecticut. It is manufactured almost entirely from 

 herrings, of which they formerly cured a large amount, but now find it 

 more profitable to make it into guano. They are caught in weirs (about 

 Treat's Island, on which they reside), and are thence taken to a railway 

 running into the water and dipped into a car, drawn up by a windlass. 

 When the car comes to be opposite one of a tier of tanks near the track, 

 a gate or door in the car is opened and the fish slide in ; salt is added 

 in the proportion of one bushel to each hogshead (of four barrels) of fish. 

 After pickling for about twenty-four hours, they are moderately heated 

 in open kettles, when they are pressed to obtain the oil, of which they 

 yield about 8 per cent., and to express as much of the water as possible; 

 after which the cake or chum is broken up, spread on a platform of 

 boards, and dried in the sun. It is subsequently ground and packed in 

 bags of two bushels each, and which contain eighty pounds — twenty- 

 five bags or about fifty bushels to the ton of two thousand pounds. He 

 sells it for $15 per ton; and the cost of the bags, delivering or shipping, 

 are extra charges. 



"The platform in use last year for drying is about eighty by one hun- 

 dred and twenty feet square, slightly inclined to the sun, with a store- 

 house on the lower side. Another was in process of erection when I 

 was there, as also another railway and other conveniences for extending 

 their operations. 



