64 BULLETIN 150, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Table XIV. — Yield to be expected from 1,000 tons of Nereocystis. 



Material. 



Leaf. 



Stem. 



Total. 



Remarks. 



Wet kelp 



Tons. 



775 



71 



12 



1.54 



Tons. 



225 



16 



4 



.17 



Tons. 



1,000 



86 



16 



1.7 







Leaves average 9.2 per cent dry; stems, 7.2 per cent. 

 Leaves, 17.05 per cent K 2 0; stems, 26.45 per cent K 2 0. 

 Leaves, 2.16 per cent N; stems, 1.09 per cent N. 



K 2 



N 





A COMBINED FISH SCRAP AND KELP FERTILIZER PLANT. 



One of the objections to the idea of a central rendering station for 

 the treatment of cannery waste is the great length of time when 

 the plant and its equipment lies idle. To overcome in part this 

 objection it has been proposed that the fish-rendering plant, at times 

 when fish waste is not available, be applied to the preparation of 

 kelp fertilizer. More accurately, the suggestion is that the render- 

 ing of fish waste be resorted to as an operation auxiliary to the 

 treatment of kelp. But as the rendering of fish waste requires more 

 specialized apparatus than the drying of kelp, it appears more 

 plausible to regard the treatment of kelp as subsidiary to the former. 



With a plant fully equipped for the large-scale rendering of fish 

 waste, all the equipment necessary for treating kelp, with the ex- 

 ception of a kelp harvester, has been supplied. Scows and tugs 

 designed for the collection of cannery waste can be applied to the 

 harvesting of kelp. The unloading elevators, storage bins, and con- 

 ve}^ors within the plant are entirely adaptable to chopped kelp. 

 Since the kelp is not to be cooked or pressed, the conveyors should 

 be arranged with a view to the transference of the material directly 

 from storage bin to drier. And the drier, of whatever form, prob- 

 ably would be found quite suitable for drying kelp. 



Assuming the canning season, for example, in the Puget Sound 

 region to be confined to the months of July and August, the equip- 

 ment of the rendering station can be applied to the treatment of 

 kelp during the months of September, October, and probably Novem- 

 ber, thus more than doubling the activity of the plant. The capacity 

 of the drier, for the plant proposed in the foregoing paragraphs, 

 in actual practice is about 50 tons per day, which is equivalent 

 to about 500 tons of wet kelp. Furthermore, even during the can- 

 ning season, when the amount of fish waste available is not suffi- 

 cient to keep the plant running at full capacity, kelp may be har- 

 vested and dried as a supplementary operation. 



The following estimates may serve to convey some idea of the cost 

 and profits to be expected from the supplementary operations on 

 kelp. Since the drier has a capacity of 50 tons of dry kelp, the 

 capacity of the plant is limited to the equivalent weight of green 

 kelp, which, on the basis of 10 per cent solids in the green, is 500 



