FISH-SCRAP FERTILIZER INDUSTRY OF ATLANTIC COAST. 5 
of fish in any one year, according to the figures of the United States Menhaden 
Oil and Guano Association, was 858,592,691, taken in 1884; the smallest was 
223,623,750, secured in 1892, and the average catch during the last 30 years 
approximates 500,000,000 annually. The incomplete returns for 1902 indicate 
that the catch exceeded 900,000,000, a greater quantity than for any previous 
year. 1 
The literature dealing with the fish-scrap industry is confined al- 
most altogether to a small number of reports, prepared through State 
or Federal initiative. Conspicuous among these are two valuable 
reports by G. Brown Goode, on The Natural and Economic History 
of the American Menhaden, 2 and by Charles H. Stevenson, on Aquatic 
Products in Arts and Industries, 3 respectively. The present writer 
has drawn freely from these articles for supplementary information 
used in the present paper. 
PRESENT STATUS. 
At present there are about 40 factories on the Atlantic seaboard 
which manufacture fish scrap. This number includes only those 
whose main output is fish scrap and fish oil. Thus are excluded those 
whose output in fish scrap is small and an entirely secondary matter, 
such as the concerns which manufacture glue from cod and other fish 
refuse. While residues from their cookers are sold for fertilizers and 
are essentially fish scrap, their output in scrap is too small to accord 
them more than mere mention in this discussion. 
Of this number of plants, the distribution by States is as follows : 
Maine, 1; Connecticut, 2; New York, 3; New Jersey, 5; Delaware, 2; 
Virginia, 21; North Carolina, 11; and Florida, 1; from which it is 
seen that the Chesapeake Bay region in point of number of plants is 
the center of the industry. 
In the following table are listed the factories of the principal 
producers of fish scrap and their location: 
Table I. — List of factories of the principal producers of fish scrap on the 
Atlantic coast and location. 
Name of concern. 
Location of plant. 
Maine: 
Deep Cove Manufacturing Co 
Connecticut: 
Niantic Menhaden Oil & Guano Co 
Wilcox Fertilizer Co 
New York: 
Atlantic Fertilizer & Oil Co 
Neptune Fishing Co 
Triton Oil Co 
New Jersey: 
Atlantic Fisheries Co 
Fifield Fish Oil and Fertilizer Co 
McKeever Bros 
Monmouth Oil & Guano Co. (successors to the Vernon S. 
Vail Co.). 
New York & New Jersey Oil & Guano Co 
Deep Cove, Me. 
South Lyme, Conn. 
Mystic, Conn. 
Promised Land, N. Y. 
Do. 
Do. 
Tuckerton, N. J. 
Leesburg, N. J. 
Tuckerton, N. J. 
Port Monmouth, N. J. 
Do. 
i Stevenson, loc. cit. 2fj. S. Fish Comm. Rept., 1877, pp. 1-523 
3 U. S. Fish Comm. Rept., 1902, pp. 177-352. 
