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Utilization of Fish Waste in Canada 



By 

 J. B. FEILDING 



HE utilization of fish scrap in agriculture has been i?V vogue for 

 centuries in many maritime countries'. * It'is'^aid that the Indians, 

 before the advent of white men; tis^d Jar^g i quaj&ljttei for- fertiliz- 

 ing purposes in this country. While sewing the British Government in 

 the Malay States some twenty years ago, I found it the common practice 

 to make use of fish, both as a fertilizer for the soil and a food for pigs, 

 in many of the Chinese villages having access to large fishing areas. 

 These practices had been handed down for generations. In the Shetland 

 isles and west coast of Scotland, I have known surplus fish to be fed to 

 both sheep and pigs. Doubtless, in these days, there is no surplus. 



As for America, we hear of a fish-rendering factory being erected as 

 far back as 1850 on Shelter island, New York, but, in all probability, 

 the products manufactured were only oil and fertilizer; and, in fact, so 

 far as this continent is concerned, fish scrap is converted only into 

 fertilizer, except otherwise, perhaps, in a very small way. 



It is in Germany we have to look for knowledge of the early using of 

 fish waste as live-stock feed, and it was in that country, some eighteen 

 years ago I studied the problem myself, though my work was entirely 

 confined at that time to the manufacture of fish-waste products. Much 

 useful investigation since that time has been done on the European 

 continent and also in England. 



In Germany, we find Lehmann stated in 1892, that fish meal ranks 

 with meat meal and that laboratory results show that 98.6 per cent of the 

 protein is digestible. Fink, in 1896, stated that he finished off steers 

 on fish meal with other feeds, giving them 3 Ibs. per day each, and as a 

 result he obtained a gain of 303 Ibs. in 90 days. Schenk, in 1903, con- 

 ducted a very exhaustive series of experiments and, with other investiga- 

 tors, came to the conclusion that herbivorous live-stock were able to 

 make better use of the protein in fish meal than they were of protein 

 of vegetable origin. These investigators found fish meal universally an 

 economic feed of very high value and that it left no taint with either 

 milk, butter, bacon or eggs when fed in reasonable quantities on the farm. 

 Martinelli, as reported in the Journal of the International Institute of 

 Agriculture, states that animals fed on fish meal made more rapid gains 

 than on meat meal, and not only that, but they were of superior quality. 



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