538 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
New York City. With a caauery located on some portion of the United States coast 
wliere eels are abundant and the demand for other purposes limited, as at the mouths 
of some of the rivers emptying into the Chesapeake Bay, it seems probable that an 
important and profitable business could easily be developed. 
There is a small output in New York City of smoked eels in cans. These fish are 
eviscerated and smoked in the usual manner, with head and skin on (see page 504), 
after which they are cut into 6 or 8 inch lengths, or slightly less than the height of 
the can, and these pieces placed close together in the cans, the interstices being filled 
with diluted cotton-seed oil suitably flavored with vinegar, cloves, etc. 
MISCELLANEOUS CANNING. 
HERRING. 
Owing to the scarcity of mackerel on the United States coast, and the consequent 
high cost of canned mackerel, herring are frequently used as a substitute therefor, it 
going on the market under the brand of “herring mackerel,” “blueback mackerel,” etc. 
The method of preparation difi'ers in no particular from that applied to the mackerel. 
The principal factories for their preparation are on the Maine coast, and the product 
amounts to about 20,000 cases annually. Herring are also i)ut up in spices, in 
mustard sauce, and in tomato sauce, the output approximating 12,000 cases annually, 
and the process of canning is substantially the same as that applied to mackerel. 
These fish are usually branded “brook trout.” 
MENHADEN. 
At several canneries on the Maine coast menhaden have been canned and placed 
on the market in 1-pound cans as “ocean trout,” “herring mackerel,” “blueback mack- 
erel,” etc., and have met with ready sale at about 65 cents per dozen cans. In 1889 
378,272 cans of menhaden were prepared in Maine, but since then these fish have been 
so scarce on that coast that comparatively few are canne'd. 
SMELT. 
The canning of smelt was first begun late in the fall of 1879 in Boston. They 
were thoroughly cooked in butter and packed in 1-pound cans, 5 dozen cans in a case.* 
This business has been abandoned, and at the present -time no smelt are canned in 
this country. In 1885, when the pack of oil sardines was smaller than usual, owing 
to the scarcity of small fish suitable for quarter cans, experiments were made in the 
canning of smelt as a substitute for herring in the manufacture of sardines, bnt they 
were found to be dry and hard, and deficient in flavor, and ettbrts in this line were 
soon discontiuued.t 
SMOKED STURGEON. 
In the canning of smoked sturgeon the fresh fish are cut into pieces adapted to 
the size of the can for which they are intended and placed in a wire drum, the cross- 
section of which is equal to the cross-section of the can. This drum is so arranged 
that one side or head enters the receptacle, and by means of a spring or clasp is 
pressed into the drum, thus slightly compressing the contents. While it is subjected 
to the action of the smoke, and as the fish becomes more and more compact, the 
movable head will gradually press it against the fixed head, so that the contents 
take the shape of a disk with comparatively flat sides. The drum is so suspended 
* Fishery Industries of United States, sec. ii, p. 198. t Bull. U. S. Fish Coniiiiission, 1887, p. 179. 
