Taylor. — Preservation of Fish by Salt 141 



method, highly satisfactory results under the most adverse con- 

 ditions have been obtained. 



A trial of the method was made in the herring season of 

 1920 (March, April and May), on the St. Johns River, Florida. 

 This region was selected because it offered a combination of the 

 conditions sought. The climate is excessively warm and there 

 is an abundance of fish (ale wives) adapted to preservation by 

 pickHng in a region where an industry might well be built up 

 and where repeated efforts to salt fish in the past had failed. 

 Accordingly, local fishermen and dealers were interested to 

 cooperate in the undertaking and an experienced fish packer 

 from the Chesapeake Bay region was sent to Florida, after he 

 had been thoroughly instructed in the technology of salting, 

 to try the method on a small commercial scale. 



The details as conveyed to the fishermen for handling the fish 

 were: (1) Avoid (a) bruising in removal from gill nets, (b) 

 walking on, and (c) piHng deep in boats; (2) salt as soon as 

 possible; (3) wash and scale in cold water; (4) behead and 

 eviscerate and (a) scrape out kidney or (b) split nearly 

 through to the back and lay open; (5) wash in weak brine to 

 remove all traces of blood; (6) rub with fine salt of a high 

 degree of purity and pack backs down in a barrel, leaving fish 

 lightly covered to form their own brine; (7) after struck 

 through pack down and add other fish of the same lot to fill 

 barrel; and (8) in conclusion (a) head up barrel and pour sat- 

 urated brine into bunghole to cover fish for storage, or (b) 

 if to be sold for consumption at once, "corn" them by taking 

 out of the brine and rubbing in fine dry salt, then pack in 

 sugar barrels or other light containers and ship immediately. 



The results fully justified expectations in every way. The 

 fish were preserved successfully and none that had been handled 

 in the prescribed way spoiled. They were pronounced in eat- 

 ing qualities as good as or better than the best commercial salt 

 herring from the Chesapeake Bay region. In order to test 

 the absolute necessity of the prescribed methods, other small 

 batches were put up in different ways, by using cheaper salt, 



