20世紀初頭における在来魚肥の改良の試み

-樺太庁水産試験場と師定商店による魚粉製造-

抄録

This paper argues historical significance of the producers' attempts to improve fish manure in the early 20^th century. In those years, there was a rapid increase of the import of manure that included not only bean oil cake and chemical fertilizer, but also fish manure. Therefore, it was considered as an issue of the industry to improve traditional fish oil cake which had been used popularly since the 18^th century.
Much of the imported fish manure was machine-made fish meal. There were two attempts to make and sell fish meal in the Japanese Empire. The one was the attempt to produce it by the Marine Products Experimental Station of Karafuto, and the other was the attempt to produce and sell it by Morosada who was one of the manure wholesalers in Nagoya.
The former was started in 1909 and used American-made machines to process raw fish into fish meal. In comparison with traditional fish oil cake, it had more of components and also got better results from experiments. But this attempt ended in failure. Because the production process needed higher fixed cost, it did not suit the small-scale fishery management in Karafuto, in which the catch of fish was drastically varied year by year. It was difficult for the fishery management in Karafuto to use the machines.
The latter was production of fish meal by breaking traditional fish oil cake into pieces. The fish meal produced with such a method was highly graded in the exhibition of manures in 1907. But Morosada had to make its price lower, facing the competition with traditional herring oil cake. The consumers of fish manure estimated the fish meal lower than Morosada had expected.
To conclude, both these attempts indicate that fish meal was not suitable for the method of production and consumption habit of fish manure at this period.