226 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 
important process, as some canneries lose largely by careless testing, the leaky cans 
afterwards bursting and damaging more or less the entire box. The cans are usually 
tested three or four times, and by different workmen. A leaky can is simply sent 
back to be soldered. 
The cans are all made on the premises from sheet tin imported for that purpose. 
The cost of the tin can is estimated at one-ninth of the cost of the can of salmon. 
On an average three salmon fill one case of forty-eight 1-pound cans. — (The Fish- 
eries and Fishery Industries of the United States, section v, vol. 1, page 747.) 
Salting salmon . — Curing salmon by salting them in barrels, and having 
them covered with brine or pickle, is the original method adopted by 
white men in this region. The fish are split, eviscerated, and washed 
or soaked sufficiently to make them perfectly clean and free from blood. 
They are then packed flesh side up and salted. In a few days they are 
thoroughly u struck” with salt and ready to be packed, repickled, and 
otherwise prepared for shipment. 
Smoking salmon . — A few salmon are smoked. These are first salted 
sufficiently to preserve them ; they are then hung up in a smoke house — 
a rough wooden shanty— and smoked for several days over a smudge 
fire, usually of damp oak. They are then packed in boxes lor shipment. 
Salting sturgeon . — Sturgeon are salted in brine ; they are also salted 
in bulk or kench and sent East for smoking. In 1888 722 barrels (equal 
to 144,400 pounds) were pickled and 43,875 pounds were dry-salted. 
Freezing fish . — In the fall of 1888 a sturgeon-fishing camp was estab- 
lished by a New York firm at Oneonta, Oregon, in the immediate vicinity 
of the railway station. This camp was 12 miles below the Cascades 
and 33 miles, by rail, from Portland. Its proximity to the railroad 
gave the requisite facilities for shipping its products to the interior or 
the markets along the Atlantic Coast. The enterprise was started for 
the purpose of testing the feasibility of shipping fresh frozen sturgeon 
to distant points. The first shipment was reported to have been made 
January 16, 1889, and up to May 24 of that year 85 tons of fish had 
been sent East. This is the first attempt to transport sturgeon in this 
way from the Columbia. Notwithstanding the high freight rates across 
the continent, the venture was reported pecuniarily successful during 
the winter, when sturgeon were scarce in eastern waters. During the 
summer, however, there is an abundance of eastern-caught or lake 
sturgeon in the Atlantic or Central States markets, and at this time 
shipments were not made from Oneonta, except the sturgoen roe, which 
was salted as caviare and sent East. 
The sturgeon used for shipment weighed from 50 to 400 pounds 
each, for which the price per fish (regardless of size) was 40 cents in 
1888-89. They w r ere caught on trawls set near the camp, and also in 
the salmon wheels a few miles farther up the river. The latter are 
sent down stream in bunches attached to floats, like the salmon. The 
fish are first beheaded, eviscerated, and skinned. The backbone is then 
removed and the flesh cut into suitable sections for freezing. These 
sections are packed into galvanized iron pans 24 inches long, 16 inches 
