﻿ix, d, i Seale: Fish and Fishery Products 15 



fish in the sun for half a day and to keep the brine up to full 

 strength. Shippers should see to it that the fish are absolutely 

 dry — a simple matter in a country where the moisture evaporates 

 as rapidly as it does in the Philippines. 



Any firm that would take the slight additional trouble of put- 

 ting up selected fish in smaller packages and wrapping these 

 packages in oilpaper and then sacking them (instead of merely 

 packing them in gunny sacks as is now the custom) would 

 soon build up a most profitable trade. 



With the exception of a few marketable fish brought from 

 one or two southern ports, there are practically no fish shipped 

 in fresh condition anywhere in the Philippine Islands. This is 

 to be regretted and should be remedied as soon as possible, as 

 there are a number of places in the Islands where large quan- 

 tities of excellent food fish are caught which could easily be 

 shipped to Manila. I believe there has been but one serious 

 attempt to ship a large quantity of fresh fish, and that resulted 

 disastrously, chiefly because of a lack of cooperation among the 

 people handling the fish. A sailing ship with a quantity of 

 ice was sent to bring a cargo of fresh fish from Mindoro. 

 Owing to lack of ice, fish sufficient to make the voyage profitable 

 could not be carried, although the fish shipped {dices or gray 

 snappers) arrived in Manila in excellent condition. There is 

 absolutely no reason why with proper care quantities of fine 

 fresh fish could not be sent to Manila from numerous places 

 such as Mindoro and Lingayen. 



The results of some very interesting experiments in ship- 

 ping fish have been published by the United States Bureau of 

 Fisheries." The results of these experiments show : 



(o) That fish spoil more rapidly if the viscera are not removed. 

 (6) Free access of air retards putrefaction. 



(c) Drainage of blood retards putrefaction. 



(d) That if the intestines and head are removed and the fish is suspended 



by the tail so that the blood drains out, the fish will keep a con- 

 siderable time without ice. 



In 1908 a valuable paper lu was presented to the Inter- 

 national Fishery Congress regarding an improved method of 

 packing fish. This method consisted in cleaning the fish thor- 

 oughly by removing the viscera and gills as soon as the fish 



9 Tower, Ralph W., Improvements in preparing fish for shipment, Bull. 

 U. S. Fish Comm. (1899), 19, 231. 



" Soiling, A., An improved and practical method of packing fish for 

 transportation, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish. (1908), 28, pt. 1, 297. 



