Norwegian Life by Ethlyn T. Clough
page 130 of 195 (66%)
page 130 of 195 (66%)
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become food for the herring and other fish. The fish are mainly of the
round sort found in deep waters, the cod, herring, and mackerel being the most important. The cod yields the largest monetary returns. This fish migrates to the coast of Norway to spawn and in search of food. The best cod fisheries are in Romsdal, Nordland, and Tromsö counties, the Lofoten islands in Tromsö alone furnishing employment to more than four thousand men. The cod weighs from eight to twenty pounds and measures from five to six feet in length. Some are merely dried after having been cleaned. This is done by hanging them by the tail on wooden frames. The others are sent to the salting stations where they are salted and dried on flat rocks. A fish weighing ten pounds will yield two pounds of salted cod, the loss being due to the removal of the head and entrails and the drying out of the water. There are numerous secondary products from the cod, the most valuable being the cod liver oil. The livers of the fish are exposed to a jet of superheated steam which destroys the liver cells and causes the small drops of oil to run together. The roe are salted and sent to France to be used for bait in the sardine fisheries. In the matter of the handicraft industries carried on in the homes, Norway has long taken high rank. As early as the ninth century her artisans were skilled in the manufacture of arms, farming implements, and boats, and her women in cloth weaving and embroidery. During recent times the ease and cheapness with which foreign products could be obtained caused a marked decline in home industries; but at the present moment an effort is being made to rehabilitate them through a national domestic industry association, organized in 1891, which has |
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