60 REPORT OF THE FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 
Sardine Industry. 
As the progress of our fisheries work and the main features of the 
development of the fisheries is being handled in our quarterly publica- 
tion, CALIFoRNIA Fis AND Game, and in special reports or bulletins, it 
is not desirable to take up the limited space of this report with special 
articles or to record the condition of each principal fishery as has been 
done in the past. There is one great outstanding feature, however, 
which we can not pass without comment and that ig the rapid and sub- 
Stantial growth of the sardine industry. 
In our last Biennial Report we told of how the sardine industry had 
sprung in a few years from unimportance to a position where it was 
crowding the salmon for second place. Since that time it has not only 
passed the salmon in importance but it has swept past the albacore 
into first place. The catch of sardines in 1917 was a little over 
106,000,000 pounds, or 10,000,000 pounds more than the total catch 
of all fish in 1916. Over a million cases were packed last year and the 
pack of 1918 bids fair to equal two million cases. Over thirty ecan- 
neries are now packing sardines in this state, most of them located at 
Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Pedro, Wilmington, Long Beach and San 
Diego. They are putting out as good an article as the French and at 
least ten of our canneries are putting up a better quarter oil sardine 
than the best that is packed in France. The French sardine has always 
been considered the best, but our fish which is a true sardine (Sardinia 
cerulea) and closely related to the species of Europe, is unsurpassed 
for its quality and flavor, and they are being packed in a better manner 
than the European fish. Our sardines are now finding a market all 
over the world, or at least wherever the War Trades Board will allow 
them to go. They are bound to supplant the European fish in this 
country. California is the only state which is packing a true sardine, 
the so-called sardine of Maine being a young herring much inferior in 
every way to ours. So rapid has been the growth of this industry that 
a majority of our people do not know sardines are packed in the state 
and most of those who do know it are firmly of the belief that our 
sardines are all large and are put up only in the oval one pound cans. 
Our fishermen to start with were unskilled in catching the small or 
young sardines and it was extremely difficult for the first cannery to 
eet even the large fish. With experience, they have learned to catch 
both the large and the small sardines in immense numbers throughout 
the entire year. Canneries which in southern California were canning 
only albacore (tuna) are now canning principally sardines. 
Due to the enterprise of our canners they profited by the early 
experience of the packers in Maine and got together and established a 
rigid system of inspection under the auspices of the National Canners’ 
