NOTE ON THE SCOTCH METHODS OF SMOKING HADDOCKS., 
By Hueu M. Sirs. 
The haddock (Melanogrammus aeglifinus) is one of the most impor- 
tant fishes of Scotland. It represents nearly one-fourth the value of 
the entire fish production (excluding shellfish), and is outranked by no 
other species except the herring (CZupea harengus). In 1900 the had- 
dock catch amounted to upward of 76,000,000 pounds, worth £502,660, 
or about $2,513,000. Aberdeen is the leading center of the haddock 
fishery. The quantity taken there in the year named was nearly 
48,000,000 pounds, which was two-thirds the output of Scotland and 
exceeded by several million pounds the aggregate catch of haddock in 
the United States in 1898. Both lines and beam trawls are used in the 
haddock fishery, but the latter are by far the more important means 
of capture. 
Haddock are landed on the Scotch coasts in a fresh state, and are then 
variously prepared for consumption. <A favorite mode of treatment is 
smoking, and the principal place where smoking is done is Aberdeen, 
where the writer spent a short time in examining the methods of the 
haddock trade in the fall of 1900. 
The fish smoked in the largest quantities and after the most approved 
method are known as ‘*findon haddocks.” Many changes have been 
rung on this name in England, Scotland, and America, and many expla- 
nations of the name have been offered. This form of prepared fish 
originated many years ago in the Scotch village of Findon, not far 
from Aberdeen, when it was an important fishing center. Findon has 
now no fisheries, but its method of preparing haddocks is known and 
more or less correctly practiced on most parts of the Scotch coast, as 
well as in England, the United States, and the Canadian maritime 
provinces. ‘*Finnan haddies,” the usual form in which the name 
appears in print, is simply the Scotch for ‘‘ Findon haddocks.” 
These fish are universally popular; and although liberties have been 
taken with the method as originally practiced which have not been in 
the interest of quality, yet they are deservedly considered among the 
best of all smoked fish, as well as the most palatable of all haddocks. 
The essential steps to which haddocks are subjected in course of 
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