AQUATIC PRODUCTS AS FERTILIZERS. 257 



In tlie meantime the purse-seine had been improved and adopted in 

 the menhaden fishery, permitting the cai^ture of fish in much larger 

 quantities, and without which the menhaden industry could never 

 have reached its i^resent ja-oportions. The next improvement con- 

 sisted in pressing tlie scrap to extract a greater percentage of the oil. 

 The first press, operated by hand power, was built by Charles Tuthill 

 at the Wells factor}', on Shelter Island, in 1856. This worked so sat- 

 isfactorily that soon all the factories were pressing the scrap, and in 

 1858 h3''draulic presses were introduced for the purpose. The high 

 price of oil during the sixties, when it reached $1.40 per gallon, resulted 

 in much profit in the business and a large increase in the number of 

 factories, their location extending from Maine to Virginia. Then 

 came the preparation of the scrap in the form of portable fertilizer, 

 the adoption of large cooking-tanks instead of kettles, and the intro- 

 duction of steam vessels in the fisher3^ 



In 187G floating factories were introduced. These consisted of boil- 

 ers, cooking-tanks, presses, etc., mounted on steamers, sail vessels, 

 or scows, for convenience in going from place to place to follow the 

 movements of the fish. Probabh' half a dozen of these were in use 

 in 1880; but owing to the lack of convenience for drying and handling 

 the scrap, this form of factory was soon abandoned. Another disad- 

 vantage of a floating factory is that the constant movement of the 

 vessel prevents the oil from settling, and it remains cloudj^ and fails 

 to fetch the best market j^rice. 



The business continued to expand until it reached high-water mark 

 in 1884, when 858,592,61)1 fish were caught, yielding 3,722,927 gallons 

 of oil and 68,863 tons of scra^), valued at $2,800,000. Since that time 

 great improvements have been made in the methods of the industry, 

 but owing to the low price of oil and scrap, resulting from competition 

 with other products, the profits have not been so great, and many 

 factories have been dismantled. The largest catch of fish in any one 

 year, according to figures of the U. S. Menhaden Oil and Guano Asso- 

 ciation, was 858,592,691, taken in 1884; the smallest was 223,623,750, 

 secured in 1892, and the average catch during the last thirty years 

 approximates 500,000,000 annually. The incomplete returns for 1902 

 indicate that the catch exceeded 900,000,000, a greater quantity than 

 for anj^ previous year. 



There are tAvo separate and distinct sets of figures showing the 

 extent of the menhaden industry during recent years. The first com- 

 prises the returns made by the U. S. Menhaden Oil and Guano Associa- 

 tion, organized in 1873, and covers the operations of the factories in 

 the United States during each year from 1873 to 1898, inclusive. The 

 second series represents the returns made by the agents of the United 

 States Fish Commission for certain years from 1880 to 1902. Slight 

 differences exist in these figures, but in tlie main they agree closely. 



F. C. 1903 17 



