96 Fish Culturists Association. 



question introduced by Mr. Phillips, I should think that we in 

 Norway have some experience in it, because we have for over a 

 thousand years had such fish, and we still have the same way of 

 putting them up for the trade. We dry them as dry as wood, 

 and we prepare them for the most distant countries as wood. 

 The codfish is prepared in the northern part of the country in 

 three ways. The oldest way is to dry them in the wind ; another 

 way is to salt them, and the third way is to pickle them ; but 

 this oldest one is not the best one, because the climate is not 

 suitable for drying the cod. Then I should say the best way to 

 furnish the market with fish was to try and send the fish as fresh 

 as possible, and then instead of putting it up in several ways, to 

 try and get it only in one way — fresh in ice. I have sent let- 

 ters home about this matter, having seen Mr. Blackford's 

 establishment, and I think he is on the right way ; and the 

 American trade in fish is better than the European, because they 

 send the fish fresh to their customers, and leave them the choice 

 to put the fish on the table just in the way they want it. If we 

 send our stock-fish, or dried codfish, to Italy and to China and 

 to South America, they have to dissolve it to make it soft in 

 different ways — by means of ashes and water, by means of soda 

 and all such things ; and I guess this process may disturb some 

 particles of food in it. In the mean while, if they had the fish 

 fresh they would prefer it, and would have the whole fish more 

 equal to the best kind of food. But, on the other hand, this 

 pickling of fish and salting of fish is still necessary, because 

 it it often, especially in our country, very difficult to have it 

 fresh, and there is no other way to send it to the market than to 

 salt it or pickle it. The reason why the Americans use so few 

 kinds of fish, I think, is, in the first place, that they have so many 

 that they use. from choice only the best ones, and that in the 

 next place the customers do not know what to eat. They have 



