The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-08

80 realized made marketable ferttii- ger. The proposed canneries will make meat. The blood. bones and, intestines make a good fertilizer after the glue has been drawn from the, water in which the bones were boiled
 Today the nations whaling fleet. all told, does not muster half a hundred vessels. Only thirty years ago there were I'll vessels in this work. carrying an outfit valued at. approximately ss.- 0e0.o60 and employing over 1000 men. 1t is believed. however. that the thirty odd steamers and the one barkentine are able to supply the present demand l or whale products, though figures show that 1900 barrels of oil were im- ported last year from the South Seas. In the past fiscal year the American fleet realized in all from its catch 12.- $50 barrels of sperm oil, 1850 barrels of whale oil and f8.000 pounds of whale bone.
 Instructions to the masters of the Pacific fleet in 1907 were to get only the bone and boil no oil. orders due. no doubt. to the demand for bone that
 ad brought the price of that commodity
 p to five dollars a pound This prized
 one. or baleen. Is taken from the moTsn .to,na 6,ss Sf the rig t5i.nt whaIs In giant
 orms fringe, a giant sieve, when the
 avs are opened, and as the sea-water lows through with it's burden of fish t9e bones become Q strainer that holds big mouthful of food for the whale The number of these slabs on each sije ' of whales mouth number from 260 to 36o. bowhead whale generally yields from f.20e to 1900 pounds of whalebone. burt one in a Behring Sea catch of 1883 made the worlds record with 3.100 pounds The record year for whalebone was in 1853 when the wide- fly scattered fleet came limping home after { bray season with 3.e52;3o0 pounds on board. Last years total was about 1seseeo pounds. -
 The whaling industry went hand f,
 hand with the progress Of the natior Tor long while Henry Hudson first turned the eyes of the Anglo Saxon to.
 ward Greenland whaling. grounds ir
 1907. Massachusetts encouraged the
 industry by an act in 1888. and the fol flowing year Long Island wab districtet for the express purpose of cutting uI
 and boiling the whales that drtftes
 ashore. In 17ss a fleet twice as bis
 as the whaling fleet of today, sailed in
 body from Massach usetts to the Gul
 of St. Lawrence, but old records in New
 Bedford show that when the roll wal
 called tat the end ok the season ther'
 was always more, tban one reported
 lest.
 Frencb .privatssrSg captured or de
 stroyed many of the vessels in the ear
 Her days, and the industry suffered
 heavily In the Reyolution, when tn
 British took 134 vessels. and fifteel others never came home. The har, , life at sea made sturdy fellowa of thes fishermen and hundreds, were impresse'
 on British ships. The Golden. Age O , the industry was between 1920 ant 1857, New Bedford in the latter yea sending s2s ships out for whales. Tn gold fever of '4s almost paralyzed tn industry sin the Pacific, for awhile, tn , sailors deserting for the newer adven ture. 's. s't .-' ''
 Then came the civil war when tn , Confederate ship. Sh henandoah, caught fleet in the North Pacific. and burne . twenty five of the vessels. while othe
 ships of the Confederate navy destroy , ed fifty more. The United States goS , ernment bought, many and 'conYerIe them into transports or mercnan
 boats and forty of these round-notton' , ed whalers became the nucleus Of tn ia nous "stone Fleet" that blockade n Savannah and Charleston. Far an
 wIde sailed these fleets of the long aG' f,t, ,thet lure of oil and bone was a .strone if not as poetic. as the lore 2 rold They have made bQth histoE snd romance, and Ghaxef hsd a grea l nractical yalhe. It is possible with th 1 awakened Interest in the protectlon o , the whale, and the commerciaI VentuI n , in canning its meat the industry ma l be given its old-tIme acIlVIsy. Iesr,o . (Copyright, 1909, by Freoerlc , Haskin)
 i, romorrow-BuI1dinE and Buiiein