UTILIZATION OF THE FISH WASTE OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 43 
OBJECTIONS TO THE CENTRAL RENDERING STATION. 
SHORTNESS OF SEASON. 
A serious difficulty in the way of making a commercial success of 
the central rendering station is the shortness of the season during 
which the plant would be in operation. This would be even shorter 
than that during which the canneries would be in operation, as both 
preceding and following the actual canning of fish there is a period 
when allied work is pursued. Furthermore, the rendering plant 
would have to be in readiness to handle whatever material the man- 
agement had contracted for (certainly to be the entire output of 
waste of the cannery contracted with) whether it became available 
in large or small' amounts. The result would be that for about nine 
months of the }^ear the plant would be closed up; and for a consid- 
erable portion of the remaining three, while being held in readiness 
to operate, it still would be idle. This objection is entirely valid 
from the point of view of output, but not necessarily so from that 
of profit or investment. Money is invested in such enterprises, not 
because of their output in product, but because of the profits accruing. 
If the profits of the short season's operations represent an adequate 
interest on the investment, then the expenditures for plant are justi- 
fied and objections on the score of shortness of operating season are 
eliminated. Aside from the inconvenience of reorganizing annually 
the corps of employees, the period of inactivity may be considered a 
benefit, as affording the management opportunity for other pursuit. 
The inactivity of the plant during the operating season is a more 
serious obstacle to the success of the undertaking. There would be 
periods when no material was being delivered to the plant when it 
and its corps of laborers would be held in readiness for immediate 
operation. This would involve an expenditure of money for wages 
and of fuel for maintaining heat in the boilers from which there 
would be no returns. 
A part of the equipment of such a rendering plant, the tugs and 
scows, it should be possible to keep employed profitably during the 
winter months. Whether this could be done would depend somewhat 
on the location of the plant and to a larger extent on the design of 
the tugs and scows. 
In this connection it should be pointed out that the equipment pro- 
vided for the treatment of cannery waste could be applied during 
several months of the year, when fish refuse is not available, to the 
treatment of kelp for the preparation of fertilizer. This topic is 
considered more fully in a subsequent chapter. 
