ii8 



FISHERMEN'S O WN BOOK. 



supplied the little market demand at Portland during the run, and salted 

 down a few kegs for Winter use. In 1864 Mr. William Hume, a practical 

 fisherman, started a cannery on the Sacramento river, California, and did a 

 profitable business, but hearing that the Chinock or Columbia river salmon 

 were of better quality than the fish of the Sacramento, came up in the 

 Spring of 1866 to investigate. He at once secured a site at Eagle Cliff, on 

 the Washington Territory side of the river, put up a small building, brought 

 appliances and skilled men from his establishment on the Sacramento, and 

 that season — 1866 — put up 4,000 cases of four dozen one-pound cans each. 

 In this work he employed forty persons, ten of whom were fishermen. His 

 success in catching and packing the fish, and his subsequent profitable sale 

 of the pack, encouraged him and his partner (Mr. Hapgood, of California,) 

 to double their facilities, and the next season they put up 8, 000 cases. In 

 1867 George W. Hume, who had been a sharer in the original venture, drew 

 out and put up a cannery of his own, packing 10,000 cases. The next year 

 William Hume and Hapgood and George Hume continued in the business, 

 and Capt. John West, of Westport, put up a cannery, the total pack of the 

 three establishments being 28,000 cases. The next season R. D. Hume, 

 brother of William and George, set up a cannery at Cathlamet, and from 

 that year — 1869 — the business has grown rapidly until now, when salmon 

 packing is the largest industry, save wheat growing, in the Northwest, when 

 more salmon is put up on the Columbia river than in all other localities in 

 the world. 



The following table, showing the number of cases packed each year, the 

 corresponding price of canned salmon, and the cost of fish on the river, will 

 ■illustrate the progress and changes which sixteen years have made : 



