20 BULLETIN 150, U. S. DEPABTMENT OF AGEICULTUBE. 



adapt itself to such a sudden increment in the amount of material 

 to be handled. 



A practice formerly much in vogue and still used to a small extent 

 is that of curing what is known as ' ; salmon bellies/'' The thin 

 ventral walls of the fish are cut out, with a single stroke of a knife, 

 and are packed in salt. They are considered a great delicacy. The 

 remainder of the salmon, consisting of the greater part of the mus- 

 cular portion, is thrown away. To what extent this practice prevails 

 it is impossible to say, as the " salmon bellies " at times are prepared 

 by members of the fishing gangs, ostensibly for their own use, while 

 on the way from the fishing grounds to the canneries, the refuse 

 being thrown overboard. In case of the institution of by-product 

 plants in connection with canneries, the waste produced from this 

 source should be investigated with a view to its utilization. Only 

 when some use is made of the discarded greater portion of the fish 

 can this extremely wasteful practice be justified. 



In addition to the " salmon bellies " prepared by those associated 

 with the fishing industries for their own consumption, 1,118 barrels 

 are reported as prepared for the market — 168 barrels in Alaska and 

 650 in the State of Washington. In some cases the residual salmon 

 is salted also ; to what extent can not be determined from the statis- 

 tics available. It is probable that the portion preserved as the 

 " belly " is about 10 per cent of the whole salmon. The residue from 

 the preparation of 1,118 barrels of 200 pounds each would amount 

 to about 1,000 tons. 



In the dressing or " butchering " of the fish the first operation is 

 the severing of the head. This is true whether the dressing is done 

 by hand or by machine. If by hand the head is severed by the first 

 of two " butchers " working together, the second of whom opens the 

 fish and removes the viscera. If by machine, as has been described, 

 as the fish enters the machine it is lifted against a knife which severs 

 the head. In either case the head is cut off as a separate operation. 

 This circumstance makes it a simple matter to collect the heads sepa- 

 rately from the other waste. 



The balance of the waste is produced together, whether coming 

 from the knives of the human operator or the machine. It consists 

 of the roe, the entrails and other viscera, and the fins and tails. With 

 the fins are cut off portions of the flesh, and with the tail at least 2 

 inches of the fleshy portion of the fish is severed. The stomach and 

 entrails make up only a small portion of this material. Certain spe- 

 cies of the salmon after they start on their course toward the spawn- 

 ing grounds, or certainly after they reach fresh or brackish water, it 

 is said, take no food whatever. The alimentary tract of the fish 

 caught near the shore is small and shriveled and quite empty. The 

 energies required by the subsequent activities of the fish and the ele- 



