Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/318



quantities produced elsewhere than on the Columbia were light. Puget Sound, however, passed the 100,000 mark in 1895 and six years later passed the one million mark, the pack of that region in 1901 being 1,380,590 cases. This high record has been broken three times since 1901: in 1909 with 1,632,949 cases, 191 1 with 1,557,029 cases, and 1913 with the huge output of 2,583,463 cases. The pack of the Columbia has varied in extent from 629,400 cases in 1883 to 253,334 cases in 1908. In forty-one seasons the Columbia pack has exceeded 400,000 cases twenty-one times, and it has never in that period dropped below 250,000 cases. The coastal streams of Oregon show their highest production in 1907, with 197,332 cases. Gray's Harbour in Washington has produced as high as y2,y2y cases and a later developed area in Washington, Willapa Harbour, has produced 40,000 cases. The total pack of the Northwest in 1866, as stated, was 4,000 cases, and in 1876, 450,000 cases. Ten years later it was 515,000, in 1896 it was 810,900, in 1906 it was 1,057,230 cases, and in 1916 the total was 1,410,126 cases. Thus it appears that the industry is somewhat fluctuating, due to the seasonal variations in the salmon run. The packing factories (canneries) are located conveniently near the supplies of fish, on the rivers and inlets, v^^hich reduces the labour requirement to a low minimum in relation to the value of the product and the capital invested. Legislation looking to the conservation of the fisheries, which provides for the maintenance of hatcheries for restocking the