TRANSPORT AND STORAGE OF FOOD 429 
the amount of salt used, and of determining to what extent the preservative 
action of salt might be reinforced by cold storage. This work is only in 
the preliminary stages, but already it is clear that fish with the authentic 
rich, cured flavour can be produced with a much smaller concentration of 
salt in it, viz. 5 per cent., a level at which only some ro per cent. of the 
water has been extracted. Moreover, when the herring are cooked without 
previous steeping, they are almost as soft as fresh herring. It was found 
that, with this smaller percentage of salt, herring would not keep more than 
a few days at normal temperatures, but if chilled at 0° C. they remain fresh 
for about a fortnight, and are fresh for three months or more if stored at 
—6° C. What the commercial possibilities along these lines may be I do 
not know, but the idea of combining salting and chilling, as the meat trade 
is combining chilling and gas-storage, certainly seems worth exploration, 
and might do much to assist in restoring the salt-cured herring to favour 
in the home market. 
Chilling —Obviously, if there is a method of preserving fish which adds 
nothing to it, extracts nothing from it, and does not alter its properties, such 
a method should be the most satisfactory. In other words, if chilling or 
freezing alone can be made to give satisfactory results, such methods are 
probably best. Before dealing with this aspect of the subject, I propose to 
describe very briefly what has happened in the sea-fishing industry during 
the last century. 
Until about 100 years ago, sea fishing was confined to a number of 
comparatively small local centres, for the absence of any artificial means of 
preservation, coupled with the slowness of transport, strictly limited the 
supply of fish to inland markets. Then came a rapid development. The 
railways made speedy transport possible. The steam trawler, and steam 
for hauling gear, increased the power of the fishing fleet, and the use of 
artificial ice for storage added four or five days to the ‘ life’ of the catch. 
The fresh fish supplied to the inland markets was consequently much 
more palatable than before, and inland markets rapidly developed. They 
developed, in fact, to such an extent that home waters became unable to 
cope with the demands, except in the case of herrings. Consequently, 
larger fishing vessels were built, having a much greater range than the 
previous ones, and the fishing-grounds of the Faroes, Iceland and the 
Eastern Atlantic were exploited. White fish, such as cod, haddock and 
plaice, became the main catch, and steam trawling became the chief method 
of catching. ‘The development has been such that at the present time 
there are about 1,600 steam trawlers fishing from our ports, and last year 
they landed nearly seven hundred thousand tons of white fish, having a 
value of some 12% million pounds. 
Such was the situation in 1929 when, with Hardy at the helm, the Torry 
Research Station was established. There was, on the one hand, a good 
market for really fresh fish, and, on the other hand, far too large a pro- 
portion of stale fish was being landed. It was clear to Hardy that, as 
practised, stowage in crushed ice, in other words, the chilling of fish, good 
though it was, was not fulfilling all requirements. The principles dis- 
covered in the experiments on meat pointed to a possible solution of the 
problem. Research showed that stowage in crushed ice adequately delays 
autolysis, but it does not lower the temperature sufficiently to cope with 
the bacterial growth. Consequently, as with meat, if stowage at chilled 
temperatures was to be brought to its full effectiveness, every possible step 
must be taken to minimise bacterial contamination during gutting, stowing, 
and all subsequent handling of the fish. While Hardy realised that nothing 
approaching complete asepsis is possible under the conditions of commercial 
