54 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



pigan and at Clark Harbour, and in a report which a Committee of 

 the Advisory Fishery Board is at the present moment preparing and 

 which will be sent to members of this Commission, you will see the 

 facts in regard to the amount of dog-fish destroyed and the result of 

 the operations of the reduction works in ten years. I do not know that 

 I need refer in detail to the method in which these reductiwi works are 

 carried on. The returns from the sale of fertilizer and of oil are only 

 about half the cost of operation, so that the enterprise is not operated 

 at a profit. The raw material is brought by the fishermen directly to 

 the works or collected by agents who get a certain percentage for 

 collecting the fish, or by the Department's own collecting boats, and 

 the fish are dumped on to the wharf at each factory. The fish are 

 first cut open and the livers removed. These are kept separate and 

 oil is produced from them. Permit me to read a brief description of 

 the further processes through which the fish are passed before being 

 made into fertilizer. 



Debcription of Dog-fish Reduction Plant 



The dog-fish reduction plant installed by the Canadian Government 

 at the three fertilizer works in the Maritime provinces passes the fish 

 through three processes : 



(1) Cooking or digesting 



(2) Pressing 



(3) Drying 



The cooker consists of a horizontal stationary steel cylinder with a 

 feed hopper at the anterior end, and a discharge at the other end. A 

 hollow steel shaft passes through the axis of the cylinder, which is sup- 

 ported by bearings attached to the head of the cylinder, carrying a 

 special conveyor, rotating and moving the material continuously through 

 the cooker. Radial arms project from the shaft in a spiral arrangement 

 so that the material is tossed about, and carried slowly through to the 

 other end. The central hollow shaft within the cylinder is perforated 

 between the turns of the spiral and steam is blown out into the material 

 at these points, so that the cooking is thoroughly done. The hollow 

 shaft is rotated slowly by means of spur-gears, sprocket-wheels or 

 other mechanical gear. The cooked material, having reached the fur- 

 ther end of the cylinder, passes into a continuous screw-press by which 

 any liquid remaining after the cooking process is removed. A central 

 hollow shaft in the press carries a tapering screw mounted upon it and 

 this, rotating inside a cl6se-fitting slatted steel casing with an adjust- 



