The Vast Export of Cod 283 



as possible. One could hardly picture them groping 

 through the growling waves in their tiny dories on the 

 banks while laying their trawls, or covered with 

 blood and slime, knee-deep in Cod at the gutting 

 and splitting, or down in the stifling hold, dimly lighted 

 by one feeble lamp, packing the cleaned and boned 

 fish in layers of salt, so closely that when full she rides 

 almost as deep as if coal-laden. 



For these Cod are not caught for immediate use, 

 nor is the fisherman's toil confined to luring them 

 from their deep-sea feeding grounds into the well of 

 his vessel or her ice-boxes. He must needs prepare 

 his catch for the first stage of their long journeys 

 ere they reach their legitimate goal in people's stomachs 

 aU over the world. Time was, and that not so very 

 long ago, when the Cod on reaching port were dried 

 and sorted according to size and quality, then sent 

 to their various destinations packed in barrels or even 

 in loose crates. 



From this method there was no change. It pro- 

 duced the bacallao beloved of the Spanish-speaking 

 people and sent to them all over the vast continent 

 of South America as well as to the mother country 

 of Spain. It found great acceptance, even in poor 

 Italy, whose hungry masses can ill afford to buy 

 imported food except at very low rates. The smallest, 

 mesmest of the catch, little fish of half-a-pound to 

 two pounds, went to the West Indies to be bought in 

 pennyworths by the negroes. Some even came to 

 Ireland, with the Atlantic rife with fish at her doors. 

 So great was the export trade in dried salt Cod. 



But now a cleaner, tastier development of the 

 traflic has sprung up, Instead of making the succulent 

 fish look like slabs of dirty wood, high-smeUing and 

 salt as brine itself, the fish is taken from the hold of 



