524 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
limited amount of fresh fish was shipped from there, but since that 
date five salmon canneries have been built, their aggregate pack in 1809 
being 829,428 cases. Some of these canneries are the largest on the 
coast, all having the latest improved appliances for the canning of fish 
and giving employment to 1,280 persons. 
The plant of the Pacific American Fishery Company is of special 
note. It embraces 18 acres, of which 10 acres are occupied by two 
canneries, Warehouses, offices, and other buildings. This double can- 
nery has a ground floor area of 6 acres, the second story 2 acres. 
The buildings are lighted from their own electric plant and have all 
the latest labor-saving machines. The daily capacity is 7,500 cases of 
48-pound cans of salmon. The largest amount packed in any one day 
during 1899 was 5,000 cases. The pack during the season amounted 
to 139,790 cases (representing over 9,000,000 pounds of fresh salmon), 
the largest amount on record from any of the canneries of the State. 
Cop (Gadus callarias). 
Some small beds of native oysters in Samish Bay, long known, but 
neglected, are now being improved and give favorable promise for the 
future. During 1899 2,000 bushels of oysters, worth $4,500, were 
disposed of locally by a few white men and Indians who gathered them 
by hand at low tide. 
Skagit County.—The fisheries continue to increase in importance. 
The three large salmon canneries at Anacortes packed 172,232 cases 
during 1899. The fish for the same amounted to 12,053,823 pounds of 
salmon, gross weight. The waste from these canneries produced 350 
tons of fertilizer and 22,000 gallons of salmon oil. Clams are more 
or less plentiful around the islands of Skagit and San Juan counties. 
From October to April is the clam season, during which time a few 
Indians work the beds and dispose of the clams at a small cannery at 
Anacortes. The pack of clams of 1899, all of which were the hard-shell 
species, amounted to 2,140 cases. The shells are shipped to Seattle, 
where they are sold for use in poultry yards. 
The cod fishery is here represented by one vessel of 148 tons that 
landed 880,000 pounds of cod taken in Bering Sea. The cod are dried 
and prepared for market as boneless fish. 
