48 FISHERIES OF ALASKA IN 1910. 



not prohibit such use of food fishes, and there is now one plant- 

 that of the Alaska Oil & Guano Co., at Killisnoo, in southeast Alaska — 

 engaged in the industry. This year this plant caught 59,000 barrels 

 of herring, with an aggregate weight, roughly, of 11,800,000 pounds. 

 Of these all but 130 barrels, which were pickled for use as bait, were 

 converted into fertilizer and oil. 



It is easy to conceive of commercial uses to which fishes are put 

 which take precedence over other uses with respect to public advan- 

 tage. Thus the manufacture of fertilizer and oil from fishes is a 

 lower use, inferior to the business of preparing food products from 

 fishes, or even to their use as bait for food fishes. Thus the men- 

 haden ranks lower than the herring. Such a view in part grows out 

 of the fact that these fertilizer and oil products, quite legitimate in 

 themselves, do not depend entirely on fishes for their raw material. 

 Furthermore even fish fertilizer and fish oil do not depend upon the 

 herring, for various nonedible fishes, as the menhaden, are available. 

 The general view of a higher use denoted by the appropriation of 

 fishes for human food has widely obtained and is evidenced by various 

 legislation prohibiting the lower use where it has conflicted with the 

 higher. The dependence of a highly prized food fish and a correspond- 

 ingly valuable fishery upon another fish as food for the former, as in 

 the case of the king salmon upon the herring, may be classed with 

 the higher uses. This in fact is one of the most important aspects 

 of the value of the herring fishery, if not its chief use. An important 

 food of the king salmon is herring, and as the catching of king salmon 

 by trolling now forms one of the most important and profitable of 

 the fisheries of southeast Alaska, no condition that adversely affects 

 it in a material degree should exist unless b}^ the justification of a par- 

 amount right and importance. 



In the absence of a material higher use the manufacture of the 

 lower products is to be commended, in so far as it causes no depletion, 

 as making a legitimate use of fishes which would otherwise go to 

 waste. Certainly were there no other demand for the herring, such 

 a use should be encouraged. The king salmon of course makes a 

 continual demand upon it, and the king salmon fishery is a perma- 

 nent one. Even the satisfaction of this demand might perhaps leave 

 a margin of the natural increase of herring for other uses. 



Other things being equal it is of course the operation of the law 

 of supply and demand which will determine what use shall be made 

 of commercial fishes, the product being prepared for sale in the high- 

 est dnarket. Under such circumstances the matter of use might be 

 left to competition which would exploit the fishery for its most 

 profitable end. Perhaps no such legitimate use could be regarded as 

 indefensible, though lower from some standpoints, but without 



