112 BULLETIN 908, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The waste in the sardine industry offers excellent material for the 
preparation of a high-grade fish-meat meal. This waste, as it comes 
from the packing table, has been steam cooked and partially dried, 
so that it can be taken after collection from the packing table directly 
to a plant equipped for pressing and drying. The advisability of 
producing fish meal] in a small unit plant attached to the individual 
canneries or at a central plant devoted exclusively to this purpose is a 
question for the individual canneries to decide, and depends upon 
various considerations, such as the location and administration of the 
plant. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. It would 
seem that a cooperative arrangement might be satisfactorily worked 
out. The prime consideration is to hasten the utilization of the total 
waste as a by-product for animal feeding purposes. 
Looking toward the utilization of this waste material as a stock 
food, a quantity of fish-meat meal was prepared in an experimental 
way during the course of this investigation. Six different lots were 
made under slightly varying conditions on a small commercial scale, 
and the yield of the dry material and of the oil determined. 
The waste material used in all these experiments was taken directly 
from the packing tables to a small fertilizer plant previously thor- 
oughly cleaned, which was equipped with an iron steam cooker, a 
rack, and cloth No. 2 screw press capable of yielding a pressure of 
120 tons, and an ordinary type rotary fertilizer drier having a capacity 
of 1,800 pounds of dry material. Table 42 shows the treatment given 
the raw material, the composition of the raw material and of samples 
taken during the process, the method of treatment, and the yield of 
fish meal and oil. | | 
Lots 1 and 2, which were taken out of the drier much too soon 
and which therefore contained too much water, did not keep. Lot1 
spoiled in the course of a week and lot 2 in about four weeks’ time. 
The meal from both these lots was discarded. 
Since it was desirable to have the moisture content of the material 
much lower, longer drying periods were adopted in preparing the 
remaining lots. Drying the meal to a moisture content between 5 
and 10 per cent resulted in the product Keeping satisfactorily. 
The dried meal composing lot 3 had a very strong odor of ammonia 
when drawn from the drier. This disappeared, however, on cooling 
and standing overnight. Lot 4 had a faint odor of ammonia when 
first prepared. No ammonia odor was detected in the two other lots. 
The proportion of whole fish composing the waste used in these 
experiments varied considerably, as did also the oil content. In the 
case of very fat fish the oil was expressed in a pure condition, mixed 
with comparatively little water. 
