Since the 16th century, the cod outfitters for Newfoundland have 

 employed millions of men, sailors in the great fishery from father to son. 

 Their hard work, in making a living for their families, has brought and 

 will always bring a very important contribution to the domestic and for- 

 eign trade of France, by furnishing a food of the first order. 



Besides the shore fishery at Newfoundland, the technique of which 

 hardly varied during the four centuries it was followed by the French, the 

 bank fishery was first a drift fishery with handlines, then with line trawls 

 while the vessels anchored. The 20th century produced the main evolution 

 which led, in a few years, to the disappearance of the sailing vessels be- 

 fore the trawlers and substituted again movement for immobility in pursu- 

 ing the fishery; the hypothesis for a future extension of modern line trawl 

 fishing must be reserved. 



Alone, the old process of salting and drying cod has remained un- 

 changed. Specialists on modern trawlers in the great fishery make the 

 same gestures and movements, with the same instrument, which the cap- 

 tains of the little caravels made in the 16th century when they split the cod, 

 while the fishermen, installed in their barrels along the rail, raised and 

 lowered their lines day in and day out. In the hold, the Salter proceeds ac- 

 cording to an unchangeable ritual laid down by his distant predecessors for 

 laying the fish flat and covering each with the quantity of salt exactly nec- 

 essary for its preservation. 



One might inquire how the great modern fishery, using the most per- 

 fect mechanical equipment for the capture of cod, still uses, for its preser- 

 vation, this ancient process of salting when storage in refrigerated holds 

 after quick freezing, would permit the trawlers, who use them for part of 

 the catch, to bring back their entire catch, at the end of a season, in a 

 condition of perfect freshness. 



The reason is that frozen cod is not actually satisfactory for the con- 

 ditions of distribution and use by the consumer which are satisfied by dry 

 salted cod, and which will remain this way, without doubt, for a long time 



yet. 



Dried cod finds, in effect, because its flesh takes to this method of 

 preparation in a remarkable fashion, a place of first importance in regions 



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