Sardines

sar-denz'. small delicate fishes of the herring type. They are caught in immense quantities on the coast of Britanny and in the Mediterranean. They are cooked, and packed in olive oil in tin boxes and wooden casks for export. They are laid in together so closely that, "like sardines in a box," has become a proverbial expression. The object of close packing is to economize the oil which is worth more than the sardines. The name is taken from the island of Sardinia, where they are packed in quantities. Refuse entrails and eggs, bought by the barrel from the herring fishers of Norway and the cod fishers of Newfoundland, are set afloat to attract the sardines. While the sardines are busy with the bait, the fishermen surround them with a long net. Sardines come and go in a way that no one understands. One year they will throng a coast; the next year there are none. In bad seasons the sardine fishers are in great distress. Their little savings are spent in buying bait. They have no other source of income than that from the sale of sardines. The following quotation from the Little Chronicle is a description of a harbor near Brest:

Slowly six hundred fishing boats filed across the harbor of the little fishing town. In the foremost boat stood a white-robed priest, invoking a blessing on the fishermen. It was the opening of the sardine fishing season and these Brittany peasants were performing their usual ceremony before the boats left for the fishing grounds.

The women on the shore watched the fleet floating away over the waves like a flock of great, red-winged birds. Upon the outcome of the work of the next few weeks depended their living for the year. Each boat carried its quota of bait that had cost its owner a large part of his savings from the year before, for bait for the sardines must be brought from Newfoundland or Norway and is expensive.

But although the bait was used liberally, few of the silvery fishes were enticed into the nets. The boats came back again and again empty, and the peasants realized that the little fish had again left the shores of France. There are no happy crowds of quaintly dressed women preparing fish for canning on the beaches of Brittany this year, and this winter there will be little work for the women in the canneries.

The sardine industry of France employs 8,000 boats and 30,000 fishermen; half as many more people are employed in canning the annual catch, which amounts to from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 boxes a year. French sardines to the value of $1,000,000 are imported into the United States alone.

A similar sardine is canned on the coast of Maine, chiefly at Eastport. Forty-five establishments in this vicinity value their annual output at $2,000,000. Instead of the olive oil used in France, the Maine canners use cotton-seed oil seasoned with mustard, tomato sauce, and spice.

Bergen, Norway, is also an important center of the sardine industry. The fish are caught in nets. First of all the fish are washed; then they are strung on iron rods passed through the eyes. The rods are hung in a frame which is put up in a smoking room for twenty minutes. The heads of the sardines are then cut off with pincers and the smoked fish are laid side by side, twelve to thirty in number, in tin cans half filled with olive oil. The cans and contents are boiled for half an hour in a cauldron of hot water, after which they are ready for labeling and shipment.