BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 177 
Brooklin, which bring up the average for that section to over $9,000. 
The canning capacity, though of course dependent largely upon the 
size of the building, is much increased by the use of ovens and other 
improvements. The canneries at Eastport can put up, on an average, 
something over 200 cases of sardines daily; those of Lubec, about 170; 
those of Pembroke, Bobbinston, and North Perry, from 100 to 125, and 
the western canneries about 180. 
The buildings are of an inflammable nature, especially when, after 
long use, their floors have become saturated with oil, and the employ- 
ment of fire is necessary in many of the operations connected with the 
canning. By these causes the danger of conflagration is much enhanced, 
and the rate of insurance is correspondingly high. The best built fac- 
tories obtain their insurance for 4 per cent, premium, but many have 
to pay as much as 6 per cent. 
Methods of preparation.— The different modes of preparing sar- 
dines in use up to the year 1880 have been minutely described in a pre- 
vious report on this subject.* The following is an outline of the process 
which the little herring undergo, with a note of the principal changes 
which have taken place since the date named : 
On coming to the factory they first pass through the hands of the 
cutters, who remove only the heads and viscera, as it is no longer cus- 
tomary to cut off the tails. After this they are left in brine from fifteen 
minutes to three-quarters of an hour, according to their size, before be- 
ing placed upon the drying flakes. The cutters are usually small boys, 
and the flakers women or girls; but in some cases both operations are 
performed by the same persons. 
Sometimes the fish are dried in the sun, but, owing to the dampness of 
the atmosphere and the frequent periods of cloud and rain, even those 
factories which make use of this method whenever possible are obliged 
to supplement it by artificial ones. The factories are, one after another, 
discarding entirely the sun-drying process, occasionally depending en- 
tirely upon the drying-room, but more frequently adopting a patent 
drying apparatus or the oven. Sometimes the drying is done by heat 
from steam-pipes, but this is not thought to be so good as the stove- 
drying method. The condition of the air has considerable effect upon 
the drying, especially when it is done by natural heat ; the dried fish are 
in damp weather much less firm in flesh than under other circumstances. 
The time taken for the drying varies considerably. In the sun or in 
a drying-room it may take the greater part of a day, in a furnace-heated 
drying apparatus two to seven hours, and in an oven only a few minutes. 
The use of ovens has grown much more common during the last year or 
two, and nearly half of the Eastport canneries, as well as most of those 
at Lubec and Millbridge, are now fitted with them. 
* Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States. History and Methods of the Fish- 
eries. Section V, Volume I. Quarto. Chapter on the Sardine Industry, by R. Edward 
Earll, pp. 489-524. 
Bull U. S, F. C, 87—12 
October 9, !§§§< 
