PRESERVATION OF FISHERY PRODUCTS FOR FOOD. 
455 
and ill repacking, the old pickle from the first salting is added through the buughole, 
it being claimed that this old pickle is better than new brine, because it prevents the 
fish from turning yellow and also gives it a better flavor. 
A century ago quantities of codfish were salted in barrels provided with holes 
near the bottom to permit the brine to leak away. The product was not generally 
considered so delicately flavored as cod retained in the brine, but in dressing it for 
the table it swelled, whereas the latter shrinks. 
BRINE-SALTED SALMON. 
During the last century and the early part of the present a large portion of the 
salmon taken in the rivers of New England were salted in barrels for local use during 
the winter and for distant markets. At present, however, practically the entire catch 
on the Atlantic coast is marketed fresh. Many salmon are salted on the Pacific coast 
of the United States, especially in Alaska, where the business originated ten years 
ago, and at one or two points on the coast of Oregon and California, the business in the 
latter State dating from 1853. In Alaska the red {Oncorhiinchus nerka), the humpback 
{0. gorhuscha), and the king or Chinook salmon (0. tschaicytscha) are salted, while 
lower down the coast the silver salmon {0. kisutch) is the species generally used, but 
some Chinook are also salted. The annual product is about 25,000 barrels, valued in 
San Francisco at about $10 per barrel. 
Quantities of salmon are also brine salted in the British North American Provinces, 
especially on the coast of Labrador and Newfoundland, as well as in the Hudson Bay 
territory. These fish are known in the United States as “Halifax salmon.” The trade 
began early in the present century, and since 1840 has ranged between 3,000 and 
10,000 barrels annually, the present annual receipts averaging 5,500 barrels, valued 
at about $15 per barrel. In the fisheries of northern Europe and Asia salmon are 
also salted, but it is unusual for any of the xiroduct to be received in this country. 
In dressing salmon for pickling on the Pacific coast, the heads are removed and 
the fish sidit along the belly, the cut ending with a downward curve on the tail. The 
viscera and two-thirds of the backbone are removed, and the blood, gurry, and black 
stomach membrane scraiied away. The fish are then thrown into washing tubs, the 
red-fleshed and the iiale-fleshed fish being xilaced in separate tubs and soaked suffi- 
ciently to make them iierfectly free from blood, and thoroughly cleaned with a brush 
or broom. They are next xflaced in pickling butts with about 15 xiounds of salt to 
every 100 iiounds of fish, and sometimes a little saltpeter is used to increase and set 
the iiink color. The fish remain in the salting butts about one week, when they are 
removed, rubbed clean with a scrub brush, and repacked in market barrels, one sack 
of salt being used to every three barrels of 200 x>ounds each. At some of the salting 
establishments the fish are salted in the barrels without being first xflaced in butts, but 
these are usually rexiacked in San Francisco. The barrels used in xiacking salted 
salmon in Alaska are generally made of native woods at the salteries, a stock being 
Xirepared before the salmon season. 
The following notes on salting salmon in Alaska are furnished by Mr. A. B. 
Alexander : 
The demand for salt salmon is yearly increasing. A few years ago there was hnt little call for 
it, xjrohably owing to the fact that little effort was made on the x^art of those engaged in the business 
to introduce it in the East. Seeing the absolute necessity of taking stex)S to jdace their luoducts on 
